The Keeper of Miracles by Phillip Maisel

 

Phillip Maisel, OAM, is 99 years old. He was born in 1922 in Vilna which was then in Poland but which is now the capital of Lithuania. In 1939 when Phillip was 17 the Soviets invaded Vilna; although Phillip was a very bright boy who was expecting to go to university the Soviets declared his middle class family part of the bourgeoisie who must pay for the inequities of capitalism and Phillip should not, therefore, be allowed any further education. (Anti-semitism was already rife in Poland but Phillip had been hoping to join the 10% quota of Jewish students who were admitted to universities.) Phillip, being an idealistic young man, was drawn to the principles of communism, accepting his fate, and arguing about it with his father whose successful livelihood had been taken away from him by the communists.

When the Germans subsequently invaded Poland Phillip and his family were thrown into the horrors of life under nazi occupation. One way to survive was to have a skill which could be utilised so Phillip’s father put him forward as an auto electrician although Phillip had only ever seen a few cars in his life. His intelligence and ingenuity, though, helped him to teach himself how to work on German army cars and he became useful to his oppressors. Even so, he chronicles the incredible hardships and inhumane  treatment he suffered in various concentration camps throughout the war years. 

Phillip is a modest, self-effacing man who tells his life story in order to be one of the witnesses to the Holocaust which must never be allowed to be forgotten. He emigrated to Melbourne with his sister after the war and became a successful, valuable citizen of Australia and a prominent member of the Melbourne Jewish community. For over thirty years he has worked as a volunteer interviewer at Melbourne’s Jewish Holocaust Centre, recording the testimonies of Holocaust survivors. He has developed a technique of helping people to tell their stories with as much clarity and honesty as their memories allow, which is how he has presented his own testimony in this book. As well as the horrors he witnessed as a young man he has remembered moments of kindness he and his friends and family encountered. He is a brave, honest and generous man and his family must be overwhelmingly proud of him.

Phillip says many wonderfully inspirational things in this book and I was going to end my review on one of his quotes but on re-reading them I couldn’t possibly choose one. I would urge everyone to read this book, the life story of a truly good man.

5 out of 5

Published by Macmillan