Milena

a book review of Milena, by Margarete Buber-Neumann

I’ve decided to save impressions of occasional books I read from oblivion. I won’t feign journalistic neutrality: I’ll shamelessly mix in my own experience and sensibility.

I picked up Milena while browsing through the shelves of a local used bookshop, L’ivre Livre, on a pedestrian street of medieval Foix. As usual, I gravitated towards the sections on history and autobiography. My eye was on the lookout for anything to do with the Nazi concentration camps and genocide. I strongly dislike the word “holocaust” as it takes the brutal de-humanisation, shooting, gassing and burning of millions and raises it to the level of a religious offering – which is exactly how the Nazi leaders would like us to see it. The word “shoah” is inappropriate in that it is modern Israeli, whereas the vast majority of Jewish victims spoke Yiddish. The Yiddish word, “khurbm”, is too little known to be of use in everyday conversation. So I will stick to “Nazi genocide” to describe my small but growing library of books covering the period, mostly first-hand accounts by victims, with Primo Levi holding a place of honour.