Beyond Survival

"I am a Jew. Between 1933 and 1945 I lived in Germany, the country of my birth, with the many who perished and with the few who survived the Holocaust." With these bald statements Ken Arkwright commences the story of his life. There have been countless stories written by and about Holocaust survivors, and each one has its own perspective, each being a witness statement, an eye-witness account - and each deserves to be told. This particular book has the interesting provenance of having first been published in German, where it aroused considerable interest. For decades the author resisted telling his story. As he comments, "Many years of reflecting on these events had to take place to make me feel the need to write about this journey." He feels an urgency to tell his story, as otherwise his unique life experiences and the life stories of some of the people he met and who perished in the Holocaust will die with him. Now in his ninetieth year, Ken Arkwright writes with clarity and in great detail - and with a remarkable lack of bitterness - about the progress of his life through the Great Depression, the rise of the Nazis, and the Second World War. It is indeed a story beyond survival.