![]() This friend has a friend who is also a rabbi, but of the Reform movement. The priest remains strong in his Christian faith and Harfenes launches on a three-page diatribe against "Christianity, which is no more than an extension of Satan's arm to poison hearts with a vile hatred." Later in the book, Harfenes meets a friend of his, a fellow rabbi who is also a very conservative Jew. But I was still really repulsed by him.Īround page 100, Harfenes encounters a Catholic priest who'd been born a Christian but was sent to the camps because of his Jewish ancestry. He was at the Auschwitz, Mauthausen and Gusen camps, the last of which I'd never heard of and which he says was the worst of all. He lost his wife, two sons and one daughter. He came from an extremely large family, 141 of whom passed through Auschwitz, 13 of whom survived. Clearly the book was written for people who think like him and have lived his kind of life, not for atheists from Ohio like me. For instance, whenever he spoke of dates he always used the Hebrew calendar, and he never bothered to define the religious objects and rituals he practiced. He was always referring to Jewish stuff I had to look up. He strictly adhered to the Jewish laws, even in the camps, even at great risk of his life. Harfenes was an extremist Jew, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi descended from a long line of the same. ![]() ![]() It's the first time I've read a Holocaust memoir and deeply loathed the author. I've never read a Holocaust memoir like this and I hope I never read the likes of it again. ![]()
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