A Gypsy In Auschwitz: How I Survived the Horrors of the ‘Forgotten Holocaust’

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In his account of growing up under the horrors of the Holocaust, he tells his story with startling honesty, the emotion in the writing almost dispassionate, which has the adverse effect of making what we’re reading have less impact. What's equally important is the intergenerational trauma - epigenetic trauma is fascinating and tragic. Very sad read and the only thing I didn't like about this one per say was I found parts of the story a little lackluster because it didn't show as many details as I'm used to seeing in these types of books however it did not take away anything from this story. Whilst overall Otto’s story is simplistic in it’s telling, I did find parts confusing as he would be talking about his mother where she would be dead and then literally not much further on he would mention her again but she would be alive.

Otto is a mere nine years of age when he and his family are ripped from the comfort of their community and forced to fight to survive in the Marzahn camp. What these people went through the emotional and physical hurt and loss is upsetting and you can only be so grateful to identify how far the world has come in such a short space of time. Thank you, NetGalley and Octopus Publishing US, Monoray, for the advanced copy of A Gypsy In Auschwitz in exchange for my honest review. All around them, Sinti and Roma families are being torn from their homes by Nazis, leaving behind schools, jobs, friends, and businesses to live in forced encampments outside the city. It rarely accounts for the deaths of the many Roma, Sinti, homosexual or other non desirable minorities.Otto noticed that his family began to be broken up and people would often disappear, some were also ‘sent East’.

It is very saddening that there was so much prejudice for anyone who was “different” to Hitler’s ideal race. Perhaps one of the most sobering aspects of his account comes after the camps were finally liberated when he still faced barriers accessing the help and support he should have been entitled to. All survivors of Auschwitz are complete warriors to me, but what I loved about this book and this man, was how he was able to find certain things comical and laugh about them afterwards. But to be denied food, the love of your family, poor health and suffering so unbearable its hard to talk about.

The authenticity and storytelling allowed me to intimately see inside not just a culture of gypsies I had seen depicted in movies and such but behind the scenes. Otto will leave the camps unable to speak about his experiences and re-enter society as a voice for his people.