Today I finished reading ‘ The Devil’s Arithmetic’ and it was one of the most eye opening books I think I have ever read. Most books that pertain to the holocaust usually take it from the perspective of someone from that time, but this book had an interesting spin of a modern character that was transported back in time to witness it. This created so much tension in the book as the character new the horrors of the holocaust but was surrounded by so many people who were not from the future and so had no idea about what the trouble was.
One of the most interesting things was the way the author made stories out of the numbers people were given. For example, a number like J17568 would be seen as: J=Jew, 1=1 person, 7=7family members, 5=left alive, 6=age when captured… The author depicted that even amongst one of the greatest tragedies people did not lose their humanities and turned a label into a way of remembering their own stories.
The title itself pertained to the Arithmetic of one day after the next. It was the Devil’s arithmetic sequence of one slow day passing by the next, as they knew that death was coming closer and closer. When we look back at these atrocities, we think of them in the time scale of weeks and months but we forget that for many people it was tolerating numerous excruciating days in which they wanted to give up. We see it as a mass event, and sometimes we forget the struggles at an individual level.
I think faith was a huge concept that arose in the book. There was so much emphasis as to how people in the camps continued to believe that God always had a plan for them. Anytime things went wrong, they would continue to trust that God did it for a reason. There were stories of people who killed themselves so they were killed in their pure hands rather than at the hands of corrupted officials as that way God would see them as victors, because they controlled their own death.
I loved how all the characters that the main character encountered were her relatives in the past because it gave such a personal link and we were able to see the development of appreciation in the main character as she witnessed the struggles of her loved ones.
Overall I think it was a really great book in terms of the pace and style, and minor details the author had were extremely thought provoking.