Forty-five years ago, when the con­cept of a mass trove of Holo­caust lit­er­a­ture was still in its infan­cy but about to leap onto the page, a raw, vivid­ly uncom­pro­mis­ing mem­oir by a sur­vivor opened up a whole new world of under­stand­ing of what had hap­pened to the Jews of Europe dur­ing the war. Now that book, which burst open the bub­ble that had shield­ed read­ers from the intense per­son­al trau­ma suf­fered by so many, has been reis­sued in a new edi­tion, this time with a for­ward by the author’s grand­daugh­ters, who offer their pledge to make sure the Holo­caust is nev­er for­got­ten and nev­er repeated.

Jack Eisner’s The Sur­vivor of the Holo­caust offered a life-chang­ing read back when it was first pub­lished, and offers a life-chang­ing read yet again today, stand­ing head and shoul­ders above many of the mem­oirs that have been writ­ten since 1980, when it first appeared. 

Eis­ner was a thir­teen-year-old music stu­dent when the Nazis invad­ed Poland and end­ed his child­hood in an instant. Writ­ten in clipped, fiery prose, the sto­ry races through the author’s incar­cer­a­tion in the War­saw Ghet­to, bring­ing the read­er along as he smug­gles in food and arms to sus­tain the fight­ers of the doomed but his­tor­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant and hero­ic upris­ing. He tells us in poignant detail how he endured a series of bru­tal impris­on­ments in con­cen­tra­tion camps after escap­ing from the Ghet­to, and of the one hun­dred mem­bers of his fam­i­ly who per­ished in the Holo­caust, includ­ing all thir­ty of his first cousins. He intro­duces us to the gangs of young teens who become his fam­i­ly after he los­es his own.

The book is enhanced with pho­tographs of fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends, and this new edi­tion includes some updat­ed infor­ma­tion on both the Jews and the Nazis who touched Eisner’s life. Over­all, it is a dev­as­tat­ing chron­i­cle of the author’s impas­sioned desire to sur­vive, his unshak­able belief in the pow­er of resis­tance, his deep wells of courage — and, pro­pelling it all, his strong moti­va­tion to find the girl he loves.

Mem­oirs hold a spe­cial pow­er with­in the genre of Holo­caust lit­er­a­ture sim­ply because their sto­ries are true. But more than authen­tic­i­ty is need­ed for suc­cess — the sto­ry must con­tain sev­er­al of the ele­ments of fic­tion: a clear nar­ra­tive arc, an emo­tion­al tie to the hero, a strong sense of set­ting, a sat­is­fy­ing end. And Eisner’s book suc­ceeds because it reads just like a novel.

Read­ers of Holo­caust sto­ries instinc­tive­ly know the odds are slim that the heroes will sur­vive, but in mem­oirs, we know from the out­set that they do. We know that no mat­ter how much suf­fer­ing the books hold, at the end there will be a life-affirm­ing mes­sage that we can take to heart and car­ry into our dai­ly lives in a way that will pro­vide us with extra strength to han­dle our own strug­gles, small though they may be in com­par­i­son to what the Holo­caust vic­tims were forced to endure. This is a great part of their appeal.

As Eis­ner takes us through his ordeal — his trip through liv­ing hell — we are buoyed by the fact that he was some­how mirac­u­lous­ly able to turn his expe­ri­ences into a set of prin­ci­ples and an under­ly­ing phi­los­o­phy that will guide him through the rest of his life. As smart and lucky as he was to sur­vive each tor­tur­ous event that fate and the Nazis threw in his path, he was equal­ly smart and lucky to turn the lessons he learned into the best pos­si­ble life choic­es after the war ended.

Com­bin­ing tough­ness with gen­tle­ness, instinct with busi­ness acu­men, Eis­ner found­ed a high­ly suc­cess­ful inter­na­tion­al trade com­pa­ny. But more than that, he ded­i­cat­ed his life to the mem­o­ry of the Holo­caust through estab­lish­ing war memo­ri­als, orga­ni­za­tions to teach the dan­gers of anti­semitism, and a foun­da­tion to tell the true sto­ry of the Holocaust.