Book Review
Title: To Look a Nazi in the Eye: A Teen’s Account of a War Criminal Trial by Kathy Kacer & Jordana Lebowitz
Genre: Memoir, History, Social Justice
Rating: 4.25 Stars
I requested this from NetGalley a long time ago because I was going through a phase of reading WW2 fiction and non-fiction but never got around to it. After finally reading the synopsis, I cracked it open straight away because it is following the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Jordana Lebowitz as she attended the trial of Oskar Groening, the bookkeeper of Auschwitz, in Germany. We do get two timelines as we are following Jordana in 2012, as she heads to Auschwitz with her school and takes part in the March for the Living and it sparks something in her and she ends up becoming friends with a few survivors from the concentration camps and keeps in touch with them after. The second timeline is in 2015 when the trial is taking place.
The first ¼ of the book was being introduced to Jordana, her family and family history. While her grandparents weren’t in concentration camps as they fled to Romania, they still went through some horrific events and it is this personal connection to the war that drives Jordana to learn more. It also brings into play the events that led her to discover the trial was taking place through a survivor named Hedy who is attending as a witness to give testimony. Jordana decides in that moment she wants to attend the trial and begins looking into attending by contacting the lawyer involved for a pass into the courtroom and a translator, she gets a grant for travel in exchange for writing and speaking about the trial and deals with her parents and her own anxieties about the upcoming trip.
Jordana ends up getting to Germany and meeting some more survivors alongside the ones she knows before the first day of the trial begins. This is an historic day for Jordana and she is excited about it despite suffering from jet lag and an early start. While waiting for the first day to begin she meets some interesting people including the grandson of one of the most infamous Nazi, someone like herself witnessing history and a Holocaust denier, which infuriates her so much she sets the grandson on him to talk some sense into him. Jordana is surprised by how many German nationals have come out to show their support for the trial but Jordana is still filled with anxiety about the event she is going to witness. By the time Groening is brought in, Jordana is completely taken back by how he differs from the man she pictured in her head and feels some sympathy for the frail man being brought into the building.
Groening’s appearance is followed by opening statements from both sides which Jordana is eager to take notes on but only the media officials are allowed cameras, pens and paper. These statements are followed by Groening’s testimony which we have been getting in separate chapters. Groening seems to have a mountain of guilt and remorse for his role in the killing of the Jews but he is diminishing his role within the Nazi regime. This obviously brings out conflicting feelings in Jordana since she feels his remorse is genuine but can’t deny how he played a role in the misery and suffering her friends have endured, but she does realise that it isn’t going to be as a black and white as she initially thought. Jordana obviously sympathises with this frail old man but also cares for the survivors and understands their feelings clearly from her own grandparents and their feelings on the country in general.
After the lunch break, Jordana manages to smuggle in some writing supplies allowing her to take some notes to aid in her blog posts later on. This is also when the cross examination begins and Thomas begins to tear holes in Groening’s testimony forcing him to slowly admit the role he played in the deaths of nearly 300,000 Jews. As this is happening we are also witnessing the unfolding of these complex emotions in Jordana and then the witness testimony begins. The first to give evidence is Eva Kor, she and her sister were subject to horrific medical experimentation in the Nazi twin trials and amazingly both sisters managed to survive. At the end of her testimony Eva Kor hugs and kisses Groening claiming she forgives him and she clarifies later that she felt she couldn’t have peace until she let go of the hatred that she was carrying and did so because not because Groening deserved it but because she did. However, the other survivors are angry with her for doing this because they don’t feel the same but Jordana seems to understand where Eva was coming from with her actions.
As the third day of the trial begins Max and Bill are scheduled to give their testimony and this is an emotional time for them, forcing them to relive some of the most horrific moments of their lives. These stories are heart-breaking because both men are the sole survivors of their families and Bill even states that he is only there to give testimony on behalf of his younger sister who was killed at the camp and can’t speak for herself. Both sets of testimony hammer home how the lives of the Jewish people were decided in an instant upon arrival and Jordana is extremely emotional during this, providing comfort and support to her friends after the fact even getting beers with Max when court is concluded for the day. Despite this there are light-hearted moments like Max and Bill trying to find Jordana a boyfriend which she finds amusing given what they are doing right now.
During this day Jordana even addressed the judge and asks him how the trial is affecting him and how he is planning to remain unbiased given the nature of the testimony. Despite, not speaking much English, the judge answers her questions as much as he is able to and shows that he is impartial but the testimony makes him think of his own daughter going through something like that and it upsets him internally. At this point, Jordana has been writing her blog posts for when she returns home but the next day is Hedy’s testimony and Jordana is worried since Hedy is more vulnerable that Max and Bill despite being just as a strong. Day four looks at Hedy’s experience and it is hard for Jordana to hear despite having heard it before because of how it is affecting her friend but she gets through it and is comforted by her daughter and fellow survivors. Jordana is able to see the implications of what might have been from both sides and both are equally heart-breaking to think about.
The excerpts from Jordana’s blog convey her feelings well during the trial and by the time we reach the final days that Jordana is going to be in Germany, she has solidified what she is going to do going forward. On her final evening, she learns Thomas’s story and how his father helped hide and free Jews during the war and how that was passed down from his grandfather and father to him. Jordana has decided she wants to go into human rights and even after returning home she follows the trial closely. She keeps in touch with the survivors even meeting up with them a few times. Eventually she ends up going to Peru on a humanitarian mission where she learns of the guilty verdict. While Jordana is relieved and vindicated by the result she is also sad for those lives and stories lost. However, this was a gateway for others to be tried and some were despite their age as it sent a message to the world that these crimes wouldn’t be tolerated and would be prosecuted even decades later.
Overall, this was a heart-breaking and beautiful book bringing to light a different perspective on the story of WW2 we are all familiar with. The fact it is told from the perspective of someone closely linked to the war through her own family and the friends she has made in other survivors add a much more emotional and human element to the book. Highly recommended!
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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