Decision

Today i just finished the book Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer and I found it to be a strangely confusing and dazzling book. The chapter that impacted me on a profound level was the chapter in which Grandfather was explaining how he gave up his friend Hershel to the Jews in order to save him and his family.

...Who is a Jew the General asked me again and i felt on my other hand the hand of grandmother and i knew that she was holding your father and that he was holding you and that you were holding your children I am so afraid of dying I am soafraidofdying Iamsoafraidofdying Iamsoafraidofdying and I said he is a Jew who is a Jew the General asked and Hershel embraced my hand with much strength and he was my friend he was my best friend I would have let him kiss Anna and even make love to her but I am I and my wife is my wife and my baby is my baby do you understand what I am telling you I pointed at Hershel and said he is a Jew this man is a Jew please Hershel said to me and he was crying tell them it is nottrue please Eli please two guards seized him and he did not resist... pgs. 250-251

The Holocaust made people do unspeakable things towards family and friends. This book does a good job of highlighting the sorrow and the anguish that survivors still experience to this day. I hate that Eli is forced to choose between his family and his best friend in this passage. Either way he would loose people he loved and would have to live with it for the rest of his life. I can't even imagine being in Eli's situation. You can tell that Eli and Hershel were best friends because it says that Eli would even let Hershel have sex with his wife. The closeness of Hershel and Eli makes Eli's decision even more gut-wrenching. Eli's experience should teach future generations that we must learn from the mistakes of the Holocaust in order to enforce the future.

This excerpt stood out to me because of the unique wording and because of the guilt and anguish that Eli is conveying to the reader. This excerpt that I chose is only a small part of a long run on sentence that spans two to three pages and talks about Eli's experience in the Holocaust. I like this style of writing because you can tell that Eli is anxious and panicked as he relates his story. The words that run together such as, "Imsoafraidofdying," emphasize the scared, rushed tone. This Holocaust story has remained in my mind long after I put the book down.