The Lost

This is one of the saddest, most heartrending books I have read in years. I could not bear to stop reading, even when I was revolted by the descriptions of torture and death that were visited upon innocents. There can never be too many books about the Holocaust, particularly in these days when some deny that it even took place. This one is especially important since it contains so many eye witness accounts from aged people whose voices must soon be quiet forever. As a young boy growing up among his extended Jewish family Daniel Mendelsohn was mystified by the tears that broke out whenever he entered a room occupied by his grandparents and great-aunts and uncles. He looked so much like Schmiel, a man he only vaguely knew to be an uncle who had died in Eastern Europe during World War II. Fortunately, Daniel became interested in family history at an early age and began to ask questions and keep records. Eventually, as an adult, he and his siblings undertook to discover what had actually happened to Uncle Schmiel and his family. The resulting journeys took Daniel to Ukraine, Israel, Poland, Sweden, and Australia among other places and allowed him to meet many former residents of Bolochow, the shtetl in which Daniel's family, including Schmiel, had lived. He interviewed witnesses to the deaths of Schmiel and his wife and daughters and recorded sometimes conflicting accounts of their deaths and those of thousands of others. At times the stories are repetitive, but they are no less compelling to read. I liked this book on a number of levels. First, as I said above, its another essential Holocaust record and must be one of the last to record so many first hand accounts of what happened during the Final Solution. Second, the many characters are very appealing. My own family is white Southern Protestant for the most part, but I recognized so many traits we have in common with the Jagers, Mendelsohns, and other former residents of Bolochow, making me profoundly thankful that my familys'lives and fates have been so tranquil in comparison. Thirdly, the book is beautifully written, with the accounts of Daniel's searches interspersed with fascinating discussions of Jewish commentaries on the Book of Genesis. Highly recommended.

The Lost is an extraordinary tale of a man's search for six of his relatives caught up and ultimately destroyed by the Nazi death machine in what was then Ruthenia, or Western Ukraine. But is it s story on so many other levels, which is why I found the interpolating of the passages from the bible so powerful. Mendelsohn takes the reader along with him on his search for information about these six relatives. But in doing so, in beautiful and moving prose, he tells the tale of death and loss for all humanity to reflect on. There are many details in this work of verity, and it is in those details that a world emerges, one that is destined to be obliterated. Genealogy is much more than names and dates and places. And this is very much a work about genealogy. But genealogy is also about bigger questions about who we are, where we came from, and what it means. Genealogy is a way to put flesh and blood to history and that is one of the most vital parts of Mendelsohn's work. We see the towns, now vanished, where his grandfathers and great grand uncles worked and lived and somehow they become more real to us, instead of numberless statistics without faces or names. I was deeply moved by The Lost and if I had anything to do with it, it would win the next Pulitzer Prize.

I am about to be 60 and am reading a book that fills me with regret, THE LOST, by Daniel Mendelsohn, the story of how he tracked down the final days of his grandfather's brother and that man's four beautiful daughters. I have finished the first fifth of the book and am convinced that it is the greatest literary work that I have read since my youthful exposure to Proust and the early novels of Saul Bellow. Mendelsohn combines a personal memoir of growing up in a "modern" Jewish family in America with historical detective work based on old photographs, recovered letters, interviews, trips, internet sites devoted to the little towns of Eastern Europe and Jewish genealogy, and couches it in the most beautiful and evocative and thoughtful sentences, often based on the style of Proust (to whom he has given the opening epigraph of the book), organizing his discussion around an analysis of the first book of the Torah (even mentioning my Haftorah passage, Lech lecha) and Homer's Iliad. He brings to life long lost people, places, philosophical issues, with drama and mystery. He has assembled a complete genealogy of his family and has testified to the power of memory, language (Yiddish, Hebrew, German), family love, pride and humor. He is unfailingly generous in his descriptions and conclusions. The book is illustrated with photographs taken by his younger brother. The parallels with our own family history, our life in New York and in Florida, the impact of parents on the intellectual growth of their children, the impact of religious stories and scholarship, the diaspora to America and Israel, are incredibly resonant and moving, and all this in the first 70 pages. I am writing to urge each of you to read this great book and learn how you came to be, how your own grandfather and I came to be, the people that we are. I am sorry that I never accomplished a similar work on the history of our own family. I can only hope that one or all of you will take on this important task and assemble a similarly amazing chronicle before the people who can help you are gone, the Magdas and Pop Pops, the grandma Lillys and "Uncles" from all the remaining branches of our living candelabra. On page 41 he lists the major sources by which he accomplished the feat and by which you, like Proust, can recapture the past and recapture Time. I will never have the time to do it, my life wrapped up in other kinds of scholarly pursuits and my nature so bent to the seductions of poetry. But you have a chance to do it, to accomplish something of great value for yourselves and for others. In the meantime you will have the consolation of reading sentences sculpted by a master and it will fill your hearts with unimaginable pleasure.

Mr. Mendelsohn has lost 6 family members in the Holocaust and has reclaimed their lives in "The Lost." This is not a dry, academic tome with statistics and analysis of the death camps. The author is a participant within the book as he successfully plays detective to uncover the fate of his relatives. The writing is nothing less than brilliant and never boring. He uncovers betrayals, sacrifices and heroics within the small town of Bolechow, Poland. Mr. Mendelsohn seems to have found every aged survivor from Bolechow -- this book is their witness to the Holocaust.

I could not put this book down for three days. Literally. I got food on it and bathwater and fell asleep reading with my head on the table at 3 am. I woke the next morning groping for it. It is moving and powerful and beautifully written. I cannot recommend it more highly and have already purchased copies for my friends and family.