I'm not reading it at this exact moment, because I have a ton of other reading for classes to do, but this is a book I have read so many times that I am on my second copy. The book I am referring to is Exodus by Leon Uris.
Exodus was published in 1958 and is about the creation of Eretz Israel (The land of Israel) and focuses on fictionalized characters that are based on real life people.
The novel starts as a young man named Mark Parker arrives in Cyprus where is old friend Katherine "Kitty" Fremont is staying. Together, the two friends ran into an old acquaintance of Mark's, a man named Ari Ben Canaan.
Ari Ben Canaan who is a major key player in the Haganah (the Defense, more specifically a member of an off shoot of the Haganah called Mossad Aliyah Bet, which was technically an illegal organization that helped to smuggle Jewish men, women and children into Palestine before Israel was created in 1948. Aliyah Bet literally means illegal immigration as Aliyah is Hebrew for 'To Go Up' and any time a Jewish man, woman or child goes to Israel, for a visit or to move there, it's called an Aliyah.
Ari enlisted the help of Mark and Kitty to help him and the Haganah get the Jewish people being held captive in the internment camp at Carolos in Cyprus that was ran by the British.
The stories within this story are heart breaking; there is the story of Dov Landau who grew up in the Warsaw Ghetto and, after the death of his entire family who were in the resistance, caught and sent to "live" in Auschwitz until the end of the Shoah where he was forced to help dispose of the dead bodies of his fellow Jews or he would be killed; he was also raped by SS soldiers, all at a very young age; I believe he was sixteen when he was taken to the camp.
There is also Karen Hansen Clement who was the daughter of a very powerful German scientist who was sent to a Christian family in Holland to be protected from the Nazis. Her entire family, save for her father was killed in the camps. Her father died soon after the liberation of the camps, and his mind was completely gone after witnessing the horrors of the Shoah to the extent of not recognizing his only daughter.
This whole story is just an amazing story for which I love dearly and hope that my own children will read this with the same fondness that I have so many times. The characters feel so real and the heart break and experiences in this story are so powerful that they sometimes just make you cry.
It was also made into a movie (1960) with Paul Newman but it is nowhere near the same caliber of the books; watch the movie THEN read the book or you will be majorly disappointed.
I leave this blog entry with the following words:
L'Chaim (To Life) and Am Israel Chai (The people of Israel Live.)
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