Book Review: Let's Make Things Better -- Insightful and slyly humorous

As a survivor of the Nazi holocaust, Gidon Lev should be bitter, angry and unforgiving.  But he isn't.  He's an eternal optimist, and born story teller, who enjoys living, smiling, and having a good laugh.  When confronted by an angry Holocaust denier, who yelled, "You're a liar, this is all lies."

Lev replied calmly and respectfully, "My Dear Sir, I truly wish it was a lie because, had it been a lie I would have had a childhood, a father, grandfather, aunt, uncle, cousins. But I had none of this because they were all murdered -- 26 members of family I lost, at least, maybe even more."

Of his family, only Mr. Lev and his mother, Doris, survived.  They were imprisoned from 1941 to 1945 at Theresienstadt, known as a way station for most who were there, who eventually were sent to death camps.

Mr. Lev, who was severely malnourished, witnessed public executions and the beating and torture of fellow inmates.  His father, Ernst, was separated from them, used by the Nazis as a slave miner, and eventually deported to Auschwitz. In the final weeks of the war, in January 1945 as Soviet troops advanced, Ernst Lev was put on a "death march," from Auschwitz toward Germany.  He died 10 days before Auschwitz was liberated.

"Just 10 days between life and death," says Mr Lev ruefully.

His father named him after a warrior in the Bible -- Gideon. In Hebrew this name is pronounced "Gid-on".

Today, Gidon Lev (who was imprisoned from age 6 to 10 at the Theresienstadt camp north of Prague), is a youthful 90-year-old who, with his wife Julie Gray, has written about life in a concentration camp ("all I remember is being hungry all the time, morning, noon and night) and how much better life could be if people would to be more forgiving, which he has learned to do in dealing with painful memories of his brutal past.

His late-life journey as a Holocaust survivor has led to writing a new memoir, "Let's Make Things Better: A Holocaust Survivor's Message of Hope and Celebration of Life."

Writes Lev in his book: "Telling my story is not easy, but it also affects me in positive ways.  It makes me feel empowered because what was taken away from us Jews and so many others was our humanity.  And there was nothing we could do about it.  Yes, there were a number of instances of resistance and rebellion, but they weren't enough.  We were powerless.  So, in a way, I feel as if I am restoring our humanity by telling our stories.

"Telling my story also helps me feel stronger and better as a person because it is a way of facing my past and dealing with the pain and transforming it to something good for people today.  From my story, people can learn something about history, and I hope they can also learn something about themselves."

Having made himself a presence on social media, has made Gidon Lev famous and a sought-after celebrity, which has surprised and delighted him, including a documentary being filmed about his life as a holocaust survivor.

Over the years, he has  lived in a number of countries (including Israel) and worked in a variety of jobs, as a farmer, factory worker, and a delivery boy, delivering flowers to residences of Tel Aviv.

One of his more famous photos was taken of him draped in flowers, with a colorful scarf wrapped around his neck.  The photo captures Lev's humor and sprightly nature perfectly.  Writes Lev: "I was still delivering flowers when Erez (an artist, who was in the midst of a photography project, called Humans of the Holocaust) took a photo of me with a lot with flowers around me.  It was his idea.  Then Julie (his wife) made a nice scarf for me in bright colors and I put that on too."

Of course, the photo went viral.  Writes Lev:  "Sometimes I feel as if I'm seen only as a survivor, not the hard worker, husband, father, grandfather, and even great-grandfather that I am.  I want people to know that I have accomplished many things, like raising a large family and plowing the fields in the Jezreel Valley, milking two hundred cows a day, tap dancing and folk dancing, and just living this thing we call life!"

On top of this, Lev is a cancer survivor, not once but twice.

In January 2024, Lev flew to Poland to join a private tour of Auschwitz with Elon Musk, at the invitation of the European Jewish Association.  It was Lev's first trip to Poland, a country he had previously avoided, because, as he put it, it is "soaked" with the blood of his family.

At the time, Musk was facing criticism about the way his social media platform handled antisemitic posts and because he himself had endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory, for which he then apologized.

Lev says he had hoped to interact with and help educate Musk, but instead, he says, the tech billionaire never asked him any questions or spoke to him at all after they were introduced.

"I was being used a prop," he realized later.  "I did not have a single real conversation or exchange with Musk.  He could have asked, 'Where were you during the war, Gidon?' But nothing, he asked nothing at all."

In his book, he writes, "To me, hard times are like hide-and-seek -- where is the solution, where is the hope? We can never give up looking for these things because they are just waiting to be found."

Gidon Lev's book is not long (224 pages), is a quick read, insightful and slyly humorous.

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