Book info

• Title The Happiest Man on Earth
• Author Eddie Jaku
• Year 2020
• Genre Memoir

Holocaust survivor Eddie Jaku made a vow to smile every day and now believes he is the ‘happiest man on earth’. In his inspirational memoir, he pays tribute to those who were lost by telling his story and sharing his wisdom. Life can be beautiful if you make it beautiful. It is up to you. Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, a Jew second. He was proud of his country. But all of that changed in November 1938, when he was beaten, arrested and taken to a concentration camp. Over the next seven years, Eddie faced unimaginable horrors every day, first in Buchenwald, then in Auschwitz, then on a Nazi death march. He lost family, friends, his country. The Happiest Man on Earth is a powerful, heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful memoir of how happiness can be found even in the darkest of times.

Thoughts

I read through this book in almost no time it all, it’s an absolutely capitvating read from a survivor of Auschwitz with an incredible outlook and zest for life that can only be admired. Eddie tells his story simply, with that ongoing confusion over why such atrocities happened, how people could turn on each other so badly. There are no answers, of course, but Eddie seems to have found peace and tells us, who can never imagine what it was like to live through such things, how to find it also. A lovely, if harrowing, book.

Rating: 5 / 5