The lost : a search for six of six million

English language

ISBN:: 978-0-06-054297-9

(2 reviews)

The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million (ISBN 978-0-06-054297-9) is a non-fiction memoir by Daniel Mendelsohn, published in September 2006, which has received critical acclaim as a new perspective on Holocaust remembrance. It was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Prix Médicis in France. It was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper History Prize in the UK. An international bestseller, The Lost has been translated into numerous languages, including French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, German, Romanian, Turkish, Norwegian, and Hebrew. The Lost tells of Mendelsohn's world-wide travels in search of details about the lives and fates of a maternal great-uncle, Samuel (Shmiel) Jäger, his wife, Ester, and their four daughters who lived in Bolechow and were killed during the Nazi occupation. According to the author, "My book is about trying to find out exactly, specifically, what happened to those …

The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million (ISBN 978-0-06-054297-9) is a non-fiction memoir by Daniel Mendelsohn, published in September 2006, which has received critical acclaim as a new perspective on Holocaust remembrance. It was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Prix Médicis in France. It was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper History Prize in the UK. An international bestseller, The Lost has been translated into numerous languages, including French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, German, Romanian, Turkish, Norwegian, and Hebrew. The Lost tells of Mendelsohn's world-wide travels in search of details about the lives and fates of a maternal great-uncle, Samuel (Shmiel) Jäger, his wife, Ester, and their four daughters who lived in Bolechow and were killed during the Nazi occupation. According to the author, "My book is about trying to find out exactly, specifically, what happened to those people."In writing The Lost, Mendelsohn notes a debt to Marcel Proust, telling Salon.com, "Clearly, the book is in some large sense about the possibility of recovering the past, so it's automatically a Proustian book."

2 editions

Lynn reviewed The lost : a search for six of six million by Daniel Mendelsohn

Review of 'The lost : a search for six of six million' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This book has everything - it's a mystery, an adventure, a family drama, all kinds of history, at times a travelogue, some philosophy, and genealogical research - all written in an entertaining and personal style that makes the reader feel like he or she is along for the ride. Five hundred-plus pages, and it never lagged. I came away not only pleased at the resolution but having quite enjoyed the author's company.

The Lost is the second book I’ve read recently written by someone born after the war (or too young to remember) and raised in the US but nonetheless haunted by the absence of close relatives who were killed by the Nazis. The writing styles, and the approaches taken, are vastly different, but the stories are compelling. It’s fascinating to me how the Holocaust continues to reverberate through successive generations. In some weird, indefinable way, we really are connected …

This book has everything - it's a mystery, an adventure, a family drama, all kinds of history, at times a travelogue, some philosophy, and genealogical research - all written in an entertaining and personal style that makes the reader feel like he or she is along for the ride. Five hundred-plus pages, and it never lagged. I came away not only pleased at the resolution but having quite enjoyed the author's company.

The Lost is the second book I’ve read recently written by someone born after the war (or too young to remember) and raised in the US but nonetheless haunted by the absence of close relatives who were killed by the Nazis. The writing styles, and the approaches taken, are vastly different, but the stories are compelling. It’s fascinating to me how the Holocaust continues to reverberate through successive generations. In some weird, indefinable way, we really are connected to the people we’re related to, even those we never meet. Most of us in North America only become aware of these connections if we're daft enough to become genealogists. For the authors of these books, it was the vivid awareness of severed connections that drove them to family history in the first place.

markm

rated it

Sept. 3, 2008