The Devil's Arithmetic

The book has on the cover “Winner of the National Jewish Book Award.”

The book is about Hannah, a young Jewish girl who doesn't really see a whole lot of sense in trying to learn all about the past things that happened to the Jews. She's quite tired of one of her relatives from the time of the Holocaust and the way he yells at a TV show about the subject.

Hannah is taking part in one of the observances when she suddenly finds herself in the past as another person, a person who will soon be thrown into the terrible nightmare that was the Nazi “ultimate solution” idea for the Jewish people.

The story is very descriptive. It should be and is an upsetting thing to read about, but ignoring what happened in the past is incredibly stupid. Some times people need to be reminded of things that happened so they never forget just how horrible humans can behave towards other humans.

There are some people, though, who even today are trying to claim that no such thing as the holocaust ever happened (and, in a much lesser degree of importance, that we never landed on the moon, Elvis is still alive, John F. Kennedy is still alive, and the Russians faked the first-ever space walk.)

Denying reality accomplishes nothing positive. This book may be fiction but it's about real events, and it's told in a very personal style. It will be upsetting to read, but it is very much worth reading nevertheless, and speaks of things that must never be forgotten.

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