Ruth Kluger’s book, still alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered, is a thrilling story of a young girl caught in the middle of a war and her mother's control. Kluger’s story begins when she is a seven-year-old girl living in Vienna before the war. She witnesses Vienna when it is still a land full of a beautiful city of grace and culture before the city becomes unbearable for the inhabitants. Kluger later testifies the mass transportation of children by the British but not their parents. With great admiration for transportation, the author feels that the mother was not right in letting her stay back, and this make her hate the mother. The author is forced to stay again in Vienna, and she faces a lot of challenges such as lack of proper schooling, lack of leisure such as watching movies, and the cruel conditions set by her mother that she feels infringes her freedom. Later in the book, the author finds a chance to go to Theresienstadt with her mother. Her fate becomes even better when she is separated from her mother and taken to children's barrack where she was to face a new life of writing different forms of the poem. The life here, which seems unbearable and more of a slaughterhouse appeals to the author. The rest of the book is about the rail journey, the forced labor camp life, and the post-war in Germany.
Different themes are apparent in this book. The first is the relationship between a mother and a daughter. In this book, the nature of the relationship between Kluger and her mother is bitter. While the mother does everything to protect the daughter and shows her mother’s love, the daughter needs her freedom and feel that the mother always stands on her way. It leaves the audience confused about whom to view as the protagonist between the two main characters. From the description, it is evident that what Kluger admires is dangerous. It is also clear that the mother does not want her to leave because of an unknown journey. It is a surprise that Kluger finds such an action restrictive.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Furthermore, the immorality during this time is apparent. However, Kluger is weak in depicting this morality in this story. Kluger needs the audience to believe that, to some extent, the holocaust was not as cruel as people make it sounds. For instance, by claiming that she liked the Theresienstadt after describing it as a place full of disease, overcrowding, and starvation, the author brings confusion on the atrocities that are visible in this case. Furthermore, she later describes thinly and subjectively discusses the forced labor camp Christianstadt, in lower Silesia, Poland, and the death march that she and her mother had to escape. Such a subjective description of the critical issues during the holocaust raises concerns about the morality of the author. Though she later showcases kindness in the book by introducing an inmate that saved from the gas cylinder, the author's ethics is already under question.
Kluger's style of writing the book is also questionable. She uses few characters, mainly her mother, which in this case, receives negative comments for all her wise pieces of advice. Kluger also tells the story in a manner that mirrors her view about the things that were unfolding. In this sense, she does not allow the reader to form an opinion. In this sense, it easy to state that the author needs the audience to get her version of the story and not the reality. Furthermore, she uses local dialect in many ways that hinder the story narration. Additionally, her poems are also difficult to understand and contextualize, and all these add to question over the quality of the book and the authenticity if the holocaust story is from her viewpoint.
In conclusion, Ruth Kluger’s book, still alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered, is a thrilling narration of the holocaust; however, it is also a story that raises a lot of questions about the morality of the authors and the intent of narrating the story. The story sense to describe the incidence of the holocaust in a manner that depicts the narrator's viewpoint about the holocaust situation. In this sense, it does not allow the reader to form an opinion.
