Nine Suitcases: A Memoir
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Nine Suitcases: A Memoir
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4.0 of 5 stars
Suppressed by the Communists for nearly forty years and never before published in English, Nine Suitcases is one of the first—and greatest... read full description

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Sep 30, 2011
Meaghan rated it: 4 of 5 stars
I don't know if I'd call this one of the greatest Holocaust memoirs like it says on the cover, but it is good, and it is significant because it's definitely one of the earliest memoirs. It was originally published in serial form in 1946, and it's quite obscure because it was suppressed by the Communists and wasn't translated into English until now.

The author, Bela Zsolt, was the stepfather of the famous teen Holocaust diarist Eva Heyman, who was killed at Auschwitz. Bela was a famous j More...
0 comments like (2 people liked it)
Nov 01, 2011
Susan rated it: 5 of 5 stars
Finished this remarkable book.
Don't know where I found it, but it turned up in our library while I was culling books to give away.
Struck by the detailing, the indictment of victims and perpetrators.
I've never read anything in Holocaust rememberings like this book.
Unlike his and his wife Agnes' families, Zsolt avoided Auschwitz, but suffered immeasurably in his Hungarian ghetto and in the Ukraine where he was deported to forced labor as a gravedigger. He was tortured, starved More...
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Nov 01, 2009
Buck rated it: 5 of 5 stars
Near the beginning of Nine Suitcases, Béla Zsolt recalls meeting some Jewish prostitutes from a Nazi ‘field brothel’ beside a railway track in Poland. One girl asks him and his companions if they’re Jews: “You’re going to kick the bucket like us,” she warns them. Zsolt goes on:

Another girl, in the last stages of pregnancy, who was carrying some mouldy bread in a music case, asked us: ‘Have you got any German books? I’ve just finished what I had today. I’ve got a few days left to More...
25 comments like (13 people liked it)
May 21, 2008
Katie rated it: 4 of 5 stars
One of the most moving books I have read because of its unfiltered honesty of the holocaust. It isn't pretty, touching, or inspiring, it is merely an account of human evil. I must read because of its significance to our world and understanding our past. It isn't warm and fuzzy account, and the things that happened are so horrifying because you know they are real. Very eye openning and somewhat disturbing.
0 comments like (2 people liked it)
Sep 30, 2011
Miss GP rated it: 5 of 5 stars
I'm not sure why I've never heard of this author or his works. Nine Suitcases: A Memoir is every bit as heart-breaking, horrific and important as the works of Holocaust survivors Elie Wiesel and Primo Levy. It's nothing short of amazing, and perhaps the best written account out there of what it was like to be a Hungarian Jew during WWII (without doubt the best I've encountered). If you have any interest at all in Holocaust literature, you really need to get a copy of this book. I don't gener More...
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Aug 09, 2011
Laci rated it: 4 of 5 stars
This is a soul-crushingly painful read on the dark depths of humanity in the face of war. Blunt and clearly written, Zsolt puts the reader in his shoes effortlessly and makes you thankful that you can easily close the book and NOT have experienced the atrosities occuring within the pages. Be prepared to read something lighthearted after this one.
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Jan 27, 2011
Morgan rated it: 3 of 5 stars
I struggled with the beginning of this book. I found it hard to read, but overall it was just okay.
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Oct 28, 2009
Claire marked it as to-read
Wow!
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