Another day, another WW2 book! I know, I am exaggerating my love for war books, but these are actually interesting. Very interesting. Exaggeratably interesting. So...here I go again with a beautiful memoir of a WW2 survivor, Eddie Jaku. The man considers himself "the happiest man on earth" and this book is about the reasons behind his beautiful vow. The book was written as a means of paying respect to the departed through sharing his experiences and insights.

Despite his Jewish ancestry, Eddie Jaku always identified as himself as a "practising" German. But his love for the country changed when his countrymen saw him as a Jewish only and this identity made him a victim of the Holocaust. From 1938, he was beaten, arrested, and sent to a concentration camp for torture while spending the following seven years in Buchenwald, then Auschwitz, and finally a Nazi death march. There he endured unspeakable horrors which he describes in this book with passion. He saw his family dying after years of torture, he saw his country dying after years of destruction. Still, he hoped for survival, he hoped for happiness.

In his book, he vividly describes the horrible experienced he lived in and the cruelest things people did. He only made it through the war because of his strong will of being happy, being alive.

"Tomorrow will come if you survive today." My favourite quote from the book summarizes the zest of the book perfectly. This book is a rundown the memory lane of Mr. Jaku, reminiscing his life during world war 2 and how he survived because of his thirst for...surviving. And he was successful because at time of certain deaths, surviving was his definition of happiness. And he became happy when he survived.

A good book for Holocaust addicts like me. 9/10