This is a story of survival whose author waited more than fifty years to write it. It is the story of Nazi horrors. It is also the story of the author’s resilience, bravery, and compassionate spirit.

Thomas Buergenthal lived with his German mother he calls Mutti and Polish Father Mundek Buergenthal who was a bank officer in Germany but fled to Czechoslovakia with his family due to the rise of the Nazis.

When World War II starts, Tommy is a very young boy, about four. Almost as soon as the Germans invade Poland, when the Buergenthals are pushed into the Nazi ghetto of Kielce. Later they are moved to a labor camp, Auschwitz, and then to Sachsenhausen.

In Auschwitz, Tommy ends up with his father but his mother is elsewhere, he doesn’t know where at the time. His father is a brilliant man and he advises Tommy how to stay alive, sometimes by hiding inside the barracks when the selections are made, later by offering to work for the Germans as an errand boy. He even dodges Mengele when other children were not so lucky. Later when all the children are eliminated, Tommy survives because he and his father are considered to be workers. Another thing in Tommy’s favor is his looks. He is blond and taking after his mother, he looks like a German.

At the end of the war, Tommy is reunited with his mother but his father hasn’t survived. About the last quarter of the book tells of his young adulthood, his being befriended by the Polish Army, and his moving around until he comes to the USA, his intention to undo the wrongs, help all people in the world by becoming an attorney, then a judge, and working for human rights as an International Court Judge at the Hague.

The book gets its title from an incident in Tommy’s childhood when a fortune-teller tells his mother that Tommy is ‘ein Glückskind,’ a lucky child. It might have been his mother’s strong belief in the fortune teller’s words that must have impressed Tommy to give him the will and determination to overcome all odds to survive.

The tone in the book changes between that of a child’s hope, conviction, and even a playful spirit versus the old man writing his memoirs and recalling the horrors but trying to forgive the cruelty and the horrific memories pushed on him by his captors.

This was not an easy book to read for me, but then, almost all World War II stories are very difficult to accept. I was most impressed by the character of Thomas Buergenthal as a grown-up. Instead of feeling survival’s guilt or hate against the people who ruined his family, he has tried to make the world a better place by fighting against human rights violations.

learning more about the Nazi atrocities and feeling amazed at people who resist hating cruel people.

the author's later life, in which he worked for human rights regardless of his own welfare.

Thomas Buergenthal is a judge at the International Court in The Hague. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he served as the first US Judge and later, President, of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. He has also served as a member of the UN Human Rights Committee. He has authored over a dozen books on international law, and is the subject of a biography, entitled Tommy, by the Norwegian humanitarian and UNICEF founder, Odd Nansen. Judge Buergenthal was also the co-recipient of the 2008 Gruber Foundation International Justice Prize.

I loved who the author became in adulthood. As heart-breaking as his earliest life was, his work and hope for mankind has been exemplary.

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Created Feb 02, 2020 at 5:47pm • Submit your own review...