The best Holocaust memoirs revealing the emotional & mental contours and development of the protagonist

Before the onset of WWII, Levi was one kind of a professional. At the end of it, he was quite another. This life switch fascinates me in general as a possibility in anyone’s life, but Levi’s switch is drastic. He transforms, and his narrative explains how and why.

It is not coincidence, therefore, that the narrative of Zaidy’s War closely mimics Levi’s style of writing: perceptive, Omni-thinking, calm, and nearly dispassionate.

I love this Holocaust memoir above all for its chameleonic quality, its deep insights, and eye-opening humanistic epiphanies and revelations.

In apposition to the Levi book I listed first, Frankl becomes more of what he already is, which is a transformation of a completely different sort. The author’s professional life becomes magnified, his thought processes on suffering become exponential. The Holocaust experience affects him so much, so deeply, that he emerges with a new field of thought that shakes up the foundational thought on mental health that Freud had well established. One is not a slave to his own mind; one can attain mastery under any circumstances with certain shifts of reason. Resonant for all time, and certainly for our time.

Night, is, of course, seminal Holocaust reading, and would top any list no matter what said list is titled. It is really that core to the curriculum, you could say. For me, it’s the Holocaust through the lens of a teenager facing loss. In a world where Gen Z, Y, and X are miscommunicating with each of their generational forebears, it is worth pausing to read this and empathize with the loss of family, and the loss and hollowing out of the self. “What is happening to me? What is happening here? What is this personal hell” rings throughout. It is well worth noting that the original manuscript was filled with rage, and accusations against the creator. You get hints of that as you’re reading, and it is enough to feel that as an undercurrent to what was edited into a memoir of contemplation, rather than anger, but the anger is there. He was a lost teenager, after all, not the wizened gentleman he would eventually become.

This gem is the New Kid on the Block (dating myself a bit). At barely a year old, it is quite a find, and the most popular work in Amsterdam Publisher’s house. There’s a reason for that. This work is not Holocaust-by-Numbers. Yes, it follows certain tropes, especially when time-lining the protagonist’s life, but what the memoirist captures with depth is the inner mental state of her grandmother, in her travail and experience. The author is young, but was mature enough, when capturing the story, to ask the necessary and deep questions. Where the manuscript departs from the norm is where the story takes on a Fairy Tale quality. Nature is pulled in frequently to serve as metaphor for emotion, especially in the passages of dream-state hopefulness. This is horrific and beautiful at the same time.

Perhaps you think I’m playing fast and loose with my final recommendation. Perhaps you sense that this is my favorite book, and I’m finding any cause for inclusion. You’d be correct and incorrect. “Holocaust” means "burnt whole,” after all (In Greek; few people know this), and there isn’t a part of the character’s life that isn’t. His mind is of a non-mainstream state, his mother is dead, and a neighborhood dog has been murdered. Things only get worse as more is revealed. Christopher triumphs, however, with the most self-affirming and powerful closing statement of any book I’ve ever read. The journey through the character’s mind is unparalleled in literature. Even the attempt is supremely gutsy, and no book I’ve ever read – fiction or non-fiction – has endowed me with a greater sense of empathy.