Thaler_Reviews_CraneSchool - page 31

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Natasha Weiss
Mr. Caz
History
19 May 2015
To Be Unforgotten
For my third book report I read Franz Thaler's Unforgotten, which is a
nonfiction memoir of Thaler's time during the Holocaust. lt had two
publishings, one in 1988, and the second is 1999. Paul Crichton and Christl
Kiener translated it. This book has less of a "main point" and is more the story
of one man's struggles, though it illuminates the struggles of others. Franz
Thaler, an ltalian man who speaks German, is sentenced to ten years in Dachau
as punishment for not consenting to be part of the German army. He faces
incredible struggles and tests while there, and is eventually liberated by the
Americans, and takes a grueling journey home. Franz Thaler is a victim caught
in the outskirts of the Holocaust and is a courageous man who faces many
obstacles. t read this book because our entire class read it for history, and I
used it for my book report because Caz recommended that we did.
"When I wäs alone in the cell and had time to think, it soon became clear
to me what I had done wrong before: you always had to jump'at the hard job
then you would be given an easier job"(Thaler 70). This in one of the first
challenges Thaler begins to face. He is in such a horrible place that the above
quotation is true. He is forced to do hard labor and work, while receiving very
little food, and under many threats. He is essentially a slave, a "political
prisoner", and so are allthe people he is with.
"What will happen in the future? Will I perhaps, like many others in
Dachau, lose my life due to starvation or disease or as a result of being beaten