Review: Fragments
Editorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsAt once horrifying in its details and beautiful in its simple, elegant prose, this Holocaust survivor's narrative is a small masterpiece. Wilkomirski's memoir is the result of his efforts to recover, with the help of a psychiatrist, hitherto repressed memories of a childhood spent in concentration camps. The book begins with his earliest memories of family life in Poland, when he was a toddler. As the title suggests, the recollections he has managed to salvage truly are fragments, ranging from the vague (how many brothers did Binjamin have?) to the gruesomely specific (the brutal murder of Wilkomirski's father in his tiny son's presence). The very young boy (he is three, perhaps four years old) is led away by a woman who promises to take him to a place with the lilting name of Majdanek. It was, of course, a a concentration camp. There, with the aid of benevolent strangers, he learns how to endure, albeit at the cost of a shattered soul. At a Polish orphanage after the war, Wilkomirski, his family gone, is again led away by a woman--one who promises him a better life in beautiful Switzerland. Meanwhile, young Binjamin still partially yearns for the familiar world of the camps, the only world he knows. Wilkomirski's narrative style blends the child's viewpoint with the mature understanding of the adult, unsentimentally recreating situations with arresting poignancy. Thrust into the cozy, comfortable Swiss way of life, the author is haunted by fears of betrayal. Has he betrayed his mother by calling another woman ""mother""? Has he betrayed those who perished by living among the enemy, those ""who live in whole houses and who don't wear striped shirts""? Considering the high literary quality of this book, its admirers will no doubt lock horns with critics of the ""recovered memory syndrome."" Wilkomirski's voice is brave and lyrical, and his memoir is a piercing window onto the past.
Review: Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood
User Review - AnnMarie - GoodreadsI have no clue. Is it a good book? It is it powerful? It's hard to tell when I know it's fake. I'm more fascinated that someone could make up a story like this. Read full review
Review: Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood
User Review - Amalie - GoodreadsOk, whoever added this book to their to-read shelf because I recommended it should remove it for several reasons: Firstly whoever Binjamin Wilkomirski is what he had done is insulting to the real ... Read full review
Review: Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood
User Review - Danielle - GoodreadsDifficult holocaust memoir to read from a child's perspective, but supposedly this so called memoir is actually fiction. A huge literary hoax? The author was never a Holocaust survivor... Crazy. Didn't discover that until I finished reading it. Read full review
Review: Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood
User Review - Ruth - GoodreadsTragic but uplifting tale of survival. Read full review
Review: Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood
User Review - Kara - GoodreadsFragments is a good name for this, since the whole book is just choppy memories of a pretty young kid. I don't think the author really says how old he was. In any case, I think that his story has since been exposed as a fraud, which might have colored my opinion about the book. Read full review
Review: Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood
User Review - Tanvi - GoodreadsI think we've established this guy is a con artist. The book's a hoax, people. Avoid it like the plague. Read full review
Review: Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood
User Review - GoodreadsA harrowing memoir of the Holocaust and death camps by a man who had never been there it turns out. I read it before it was known to be a hoax and it moved me. If it were real I might give it more...difficult decision.
Review: Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood
User Review - GoodreadsEven if "Fragments" is an elaborate fiction written by a gentile imposter, as alleged by Blake Eskin and others, it is still the most powerful depiction I've ever read about a child survivor of the Holocaust.
Review: Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood
User Review - Daniel Headifen - GoodreadsFor some reason the author made this account up. Strange. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binjamin... Read full review
