Binjamin Wilkomirski

Binjamin was a very young child when he was sent to a concentration camp. Despite his youth and his inexperience, he was able to survive the atrocities and horrors of World War II.

I have read the reviews, and the articles about this being a fictionalized story. However, I must say that it is well written, engaging and intriguing. Many scholarly articles suggest that Binjamin himself truly believes the fiction he has created. As such, I am not outraged about this story. Many horrible things happened during World War II. If his memories are not reality then he is a troubled individual, one who perhaps survived different horrors, and does not deserve scorn but rather compassion.… (mere)

Note: This review and most others will be spoilers. To get the full impact of this book, read it first, and, only afterward, read the reviews.

This is probably the most devastating account of the Holocaust I have ever read. I think that whatever I say about this book probably will not give it enough justice.

Fragments is the account, in bits and pieces, of a child survivor of the Majdanek death camp during World War II. It has taken the author many years to piece through the truth of that time, but he tells his story through the eyes of a child. He was only three or four years old when he was thrust by himself into this world of horror. The ideas and thoughts that he formed from seeing incredible brutality affected his psyche even after his so-called “liberation” from Nazi persecution. The most heartrending part of this book for me, oddly enough, was the part about young Binjamin’s re-entry into the world outside of the concentration camp.

As the granddaughter of maternal grandparents who died in the ovens of Auschwitz, I grew up in an atmosphere in which my parents never told me anything disturbing about their family related to the Holocaust. How doubly sad, then, it must have been for young Binjamin, who actually endured this fiendish world, to never have been allowed to or felt free enough to talk about his enduring fears even after his “liberation”.

This is a troubling book. Beware, if you choose to read it, that it contains unbearable cruelty. Yet know in your hearts that this is not fiction.

Addendum: It was only after I finished reading this book that I remembered why I got it in the first place. The book was found out to be, not the biography of the author, but a hoax. Truthfully, I'm glad I didn't remember this at the time I read it. In other words, I had the full impact of the story from a personal point of view. As in shades of James Frey's book, A Milllion Little Pieces, the public's outrage has come to the forefront to decry the success of this book. Oddly enough, even though Wilkomirski's story is fiction, I'm pretty certain that the feelings of the victims of the Holocaust, had they been children or adults, were not far from those of young Binjamin in this story.… (mere)