Book Review

A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal

Elie Wiesel, fwd. Little, Brown and Company: 2009. Pp xvi, 228. $24.99.

This memoir by the late Thomas Buergenthal (1934-2023), a Judge in the International Court of Justice in The Hague as well as in several other human rights courts, tells how his survival of Auschwitz which he entered at age 10 after surviving two ghettos and a labor camp influenced his long career as a stellar human rights lawyer and advocate. As the Amazon book description concludes: "A Lucky Child is a book that demands to be read by all."

"It was more than luck and the good for­tune of his ​“Aryan” fea­tures that enabled him to sur­vive the war — it was his strength, wis­dom, and enor­mous faith that he would one day sur­vive and be reunit­ed with his parents. Amaz­ing­ly, Thomas was reunit­ed with his moth­er short­ly after the war and then moved to the Unit­ed States and began a career as lawyer and then as a judge. He has ded­i­cat­ed his career to fight­ing against the human rights vio­la­tions that he expe­ri­enced as a child."

*****

Sources:

(1) Amazon book description.

(2) Read the book review in ReformJudaism.org.

(3) Read the December 22, 2011 Jewish Book Council book review.

(4) Photo courtesy of Amazon.com.