Survival and Payback: Memoir of Joe Brandt--Survivor # A17874

FROM RABBI KRIPPER, CO-CHAIRMAN OF THE CHRISTIAN-JEWISH CONFRATERNITY

Joe Brandt’s story, written by Burt Goldman is worthy of being revealed in a Stephen Spielberg movie about the Holocaust. It is a fascinating story, striking in the beauty of its simplicity. It catches the reader’s attention from the very beginning. Throughout a dramatic journey from the darkest depths of Hell to the dawn of a new hope. It is a moving story that turns every reader into a participant in a heartrending adventure with its multiple lights and shades, laughter and tears. The chapter entitled ‘The Detective’ is in itself a real suspense novel. It is the perfect ending of a book telling the story of a remarkable survivor which will certainly reach the hearts of readers around the world.

FROM PROFESSOR MICHAEL BERENBAUM, THE UNIVERSITY OF JUDAISM

The story of Joe Brandt is powerful and poignant. His description of Auschwitz is compelling and unrelenting. The evil and inhumanity is depicted; so too the constrained inner life of its inhabitants. One feels the intensity of the death march and what it means to be at the bottom. What is unique about this memoir is the time and energy devoted to the journey back to life. I was moved as I read his description of eating his first apple, of the loneliness of coming to a new land with nothing and with no one. And his confrontation with his Capo from Auschwitz is vivid. Seldom in life—and almost never in the Holocaust—do we see the perpetrators getting precisely what they deserve. Of greater importance are the heroic efforts that Joe has made to remember the past and to transform the future. He has told his story; he has built a monument to the Shoah. He has transmitted his memory. Well done indeed.
Professor Michael Berenbaum, Director Sigi Ziering Institute, Professor of theology, The University of Judaism, former Director of Holocaust Research Institute, the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC