Eddie Jaku’s memoir is a surprisingly uplifting reading experience. In spite of all that he has experienced, and all that he has lost, he has survived, and flourished, and considers himself ‘The happiest man on Earth’.

Eddie came from a comfortable middle-class German family, who also happened to be Jewish. He saw himself firstly as German, and considered Germany to be the greatest country in the world. However, with the rise of the Nazi Party, and the persecution of the Jewish people, his world was destroyed, and his belief in Germany shattered.

If enough people had stood up then, on Kristallnacht, and said, ‘Enough! What are you doing? What is wrong with you?’ then the course of history would have been different. But they did not. They were scared. They were weak. And their weakness allowed them to be manipulated into hatred.

There are many memoirs written by survivors of the Holocaust. What makes Eddie’s story so refreshing is his abiding belief that his survival was due to the many kindnesses of strangers, and the extraordinary friendships he forged. There are several incidences where Eddie survives purely because he and his friends device a plan to ensure their safety. Individually, they would have perished; together they survived. ‘I can tell you that I would not be here today without Kurt. Thanks to my friend, I survived. We looked after each other. When one of us was injured or too sick to work, the other would find food and help the other. We kept each other alive.’

Eddie’s enthusiasm for life is contagious. He is one hundred years old, and a true survivor. His memoir is peppered with advice. Advice can be annoying, or even patronising. But not when it comes from a man who has seen such evil and survived. His advice is gold:

I have learned early in life that we are all part of a larger society and our work is our contribution to a free and safe life for all….Your efforts today will affect people you will never know. It is your choice whether that effect is positive or negative. You can choose every day, every minute, to act in a way that may uplift a stranger, or else drag them down. The choice is easy. And it is yours to make.