This book is full of pain, distress, fear and injustice. All these things are contained in a work which is also a touching historical account of the Nazi Deportation during the Second World War. This book is entitled “ Le Wagon” and was written by the French novelist Rykner Arnaud. Currently there are only two versions of this book: Italian and French. We read the first some years ago. Today we have decided to review the book on occasion of the Anniversary of the demolition of gates in the concentration camp in Auschwitz.
This event, which revealed to the world the awful and upsetting reality of Nazi Deportation, occurred on January 27, 1945. Since then, this day has been regarded and remembered in the world as “The International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.”. Le Wagon, The Wagon, in English, describes exactly what happened during the dark and cruel years of the Nazi Deportation. The book tells about the travel of the last train of deported Jews going to the concentration camp in Dachau (Germany).
It was in July, 22, 1944 and a train, coming from France and consisting of 22 wagons, was filled and crowed with over 2,000 persons. That train took three days to cover a path that, in normal conditions, would need only 24 hours. The same train went through regions characterized by very high and unbearable summer temperature. On arrival, the deaths were countless. This poignant novel is the story of that journey lived inside one of the wagons of the train. That is a pure horror tale, a nightmare turned into reality. One thousand people massed like beasts inside a space of a goods wagon, an unbearable heat, with no air, and more, starvation, thirst, death that everyone could feel and touch. Death and its dreadful smell…
A three day journey, where, inside each wagon, persons, who were even robbed of shame, witnessed the hell on the earth and in their life. Three days that the author describes minute by minute. Three days of despair and full absence of mercy and pity where everyone fought against contradictory feelings: fear, disgust, panic, and more, rage and the hate for themselves and others and the desire to live or commit suicide. In the wagon, people had no room not even to make their bodily needs that, often, ended up on the body of their fellows. Watching these humiliations, a deportee pronounced these moving words: “ Today I have lost my humanity”.
All deported people endured the dehumanization who the Nazis perpetrated during the war. This dehumanization began just inside trains like that the author tells in his book. In those trains, mankind touched the bottom of cruelty and vileness. But in this book there is also the hope that sometimes occurs when the train stops suddenly, and an intense and complete solidarity never seen before. Rykner Arnaud managed to tell us a story which that does not leave indifferent and that remind us the unforgettable wounds left in our soul by the darkest and cruel age in the history of Humanity. This review is to not forget and prevent such abjection happens again.
Sources: Some sentences of this review are translated by the Italian review published on www.ibs.it
Rosalba Mancuso is the journalist, born in Sicily, who founded three online magazines in English. On Advicebooks Book Reviews, Rosalba shows her great passion for books, helping readers and book lovers choose and buy the best books she read and reviewed. She also worked as a contributor to print and online magazines and as a bilingual Italian-English writer. Here, Rosalba also offers room to authors and publishers who want to get their books reviewed through the voice of an avid reader like her. You must also know that this book review magazine lives thanks to your help. Rosalba, in fact, earns a small commission, with no cost for you, when you buy books through the affiliate links you find in her book reviews. This book review magazine is also funded by services of editorial reviews and book press releases.
