...or, a Parade of Fools or Liars?

5 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
One of the most moving books that I have ever read., July 4, 1998
By nh_mensch (Merrimack, NH USA) - See all my reviews

I couldn't put the book down once I started it. The account of this real life tragedy, as remembered by Misha after many years, brings vivid images to me. These images are probably very insignificant compared to what Misha as a child must have endured. I can only hope that Misha can write a follow-on of her experiences. Also I hope someone has the forsight to make a movie of this, with Misha authenticating the accounts as they happened. In these ways, her experiences can be communicated so that many understand the inhumanity that we're capable of, so that we can attempt to prevent this from happening in the present and the future.
I have had the opportunity to have met Misha and am convinced of her authenticity and convictions.

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1 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
amazing, April 3, 2000
By silvia (Israel) - See all my reviews

I read this book a short while ago and it is almost impossibleto put down.Being jewish ,I read many books about theholocost-biographys,historical,novels and such.The book is heartbreaking and inspirational indeed.I have a little problem with it though-The memories are of a child's but they are told in the language of a grown-up,maybe it's because she had a co-author. Many people say "how can you trust the memory of a child or even a grown-up,when it happend "so long ago"? Well if you think like that you can't trust anything in this world-no accounts of people,memories or anything because one can always claim all thoughts,accounts and memories are subjective.I always used to think(and i'm only 29 years old)that nobody will ever be able to deny the holocost.The Germans documented everyting,there are films,pictures,all kinds of documents,millions of people that took part in the greatest mass murder ever,the survivers themselves,and last but not least the soldiers of the allys that liberated Europe.Most of them weren't Jews,but they saw it all!SO WHAT! there are many holocost deniers even in the face of so much evidence! At some points while reading the book I thought "God,it's not logical that such a little girl would react in such ways,it can't be".But then I thought,"what was logical in those times and circumstances?"Desperate times call for desperate mesures and means.Who knows what each of us would have done in the same situations?Who knows what ideas we would have if we didn't have a choice and our lives depended on it?One more thing I want to say to those that can't believe a child can remember so vivedly.Take yourselves and your memories,and you'll see you have memories from a very early age,especially very good or very bad memories!Almost all of us remember!The terrible things Misha experienced and saw,make it very logical that she does remember.I'm sure I would never forget such things! I strongly recommend this book and many others about the holocost and world war two ,it will change your life,or at least it should! END Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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7 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
A true tale of the triumph of the human spirit, September 21, 1998
By A Customer

Having met Misha in person, and not having heard her entire story, I set about reading this book with the thought that it would tear my heart out. This was true, in some parts; in others, I laughed at her childlike approach to survival and groaned over her adult perspective on human beings.
This book is a must-read for anyone who has ever celebrated childhood or courage or survival; it should be recommended to readers who are interested in history or spiritualism or people.

It is at once saddening and uplifiting, humorous and desparate, dark and enlightening.

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0 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
Good addition to my library, July 24, 2006
By Sovereign Bank "bookey" (Boston MA) - See all my reviews

I was captured in the story. Did'nt want to put the book down. Misha wasn't necessarily "raised" by wolves, she encountered the wolves on her lonely journey, and what way to make friend than foe with the wolves- Being out in the woods on her own made her senses heighten, which helped her to adapt (the best she could as a child) to her surroundings and nature. Furthermore, brang her to a higher understanding level with the animals. She was lonely, and she felt peace from her many struggles when she was with the wolves. Misha had many encounters humans and animals. When you read this book hopefully you will underdstand why the wolves play a significant part to her life. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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4 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
THE DEEP DOWN STRENGTH OF SURVIVAL, May 10, 2002
By Joanna Riden Aamodt (WALKER, MINNESOTA) - See all my reviews

This is not just another view of WWII. It is a true and personal journey of an orphaned 7 year old through war ravaged Belgium and Eastern Europe. From her escape from a "safe home" to living with a pack of wolves, this is a story of what strength and ingenuity it takes to survive. She joins thousands of others who managed to escape the Nazi's. A remarkable story. Can't wait for the movie! Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
The greatest book of all books . ( I cried reading it ), September 24, 1999
By A Customer

Hi I'm a reader from holland. I'm 15 years old. I just wanted to say this book should be red by everybody. And also I wanted to say to Misha that I find it really good of her to tell her story.
xxx- jes and lots of Love Justina

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5 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
A survival storie through the eyes of a child, August 24, 2001
By Valerie E. Sullivan "vsullivan@essexinvest.com" (Millis, MA USA) - See all my reviews

I am a personal friend of Misha and her family and the account of her story is true. Misha's personality as an adult truly reflects the effect of her life's trauma. Animals are magnetized by her. And i don't just mean domesticated animals. The wildlife is equally attracted to Misha and her love for them. My family and I have been mesmerized by the way she communicates with them. On one occasion, we joined her to a place in Ipswich where they have wolves in captivity. As the group of wolves was innocently going about their daily routine, Misha howled to them. They all howled back to her. Tears ran down my face and shills went down my spine at the same time. It was so incredible. Now we, as an audience tried to howl too. But the response just wasn't there. She clearly could communicate to them. I read her book, i know her life and she is a dear friend to the family. It's a touching story of true survival. The people that actually survived the period of the Holocaust, all have remarkable and incredible stories of survival to tell and sometimes it make you think that only a greater power must have been there to keep them alive. Misha just happened to be one of them.Now may be someone out there may know the fate of her parents and can put her life at rest. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
best book in my life, May 23, 2000
By irene pahor (Trieste, Italia) - See all my reviews

I think Misha's book is the best book i've never read. I hope to meet this special person to tell her how she made me cry while reading. I agree with people who told that it's a book that must be read from all the people, particularly from students who are now opening to the world I would be very happy to have some more informations about the author and also to speak with sombody who read this book to discuss Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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1 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Fantastic!, September 19, 1999
By A Customer

This book is fantastic! I really liked it. It was wonderful to see what this little girl did to live tro WW2. I just think that this book is great. You just have to read it. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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2 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Amazing, I'm in awe of her ingenuity and 7 year old courage., June 8, 1999
By A Customer

There are people who have incredible rapport with animals, and Misha certainly is one of those people. Those who do not care about or understand animals will doubt her friendship with them. I feel a certain tie to Misha, as while she was walking and walking and surviving and surviving, my father was one of those who landed at Normandy, and who liberated Buchenwald. It's even possible that their paths crossed as he was awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre for actions while there at that time. I would certainly love to meet Misha, and find her story believable as well as spellbinding. She must be an incredible person. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
best book I have ever read, March 16, 1998
By A Customer

Misha, was the best book I have ever read. You walk every step with her. Couldn't put the book down....wonderful, man injustice to man...a must read Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Misha, March 13, 1998
By A Customer

How do I rate this book...you don't go above 10...this is the best book I have ever read. I loved it. A must read of human injustice of man. This is wonderful book of courage, bring your tissues..I can't understand why Steven Speilberg haven't made a movie out of it yet. It would sink the Titanic... Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Fantistic book on how much a human being can endure, November 4, 1997
By A Customer

I read continually and I think of all the books I have ever read about the holocaust this was one of the best from a human standpoint. I now know that I as well as all humans are able to withstand tremendous hardships if we have that one desire to live. Also being an animal lover I know how she felt, they were her soul mates, true friends. Her statement that the Nazis killed like humans" not animals was so profound and true. Animals would never kill in masses as the Nazis's did and in this world there will always be somewhere a "holocaust". People do that to each other not animals. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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0 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
A great book - very moving, and hard to put down, July 17, 1997
By A Customer

This book was very moving on many levels. The author witnessed and experienced so many horrors, and yet the book has quite a few uplifting moments as well. For someone as young as her to have had such wisdom, common sense, and sheer luck is amazing. The book is very well written, and really grabs you. I didn't want it to end. I wanted to know more about what happened in her life after the war ended Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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0 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
A Very Moving Book, July 28, 2000
By Jerald Figgins (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews

Of all the books that I have read, this book is one that I will never forget. This very moving book will burn an unforgetable image in your brain. The image of her, a seven year old girl, surviving by eating what she entices an adult wolf to regurgitate, is wrenching.. There are many more things about this book that make it such an important book to read. I hope that someone will make it into a movie. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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3 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
another wolf lover: me, May 26, 2000
By A Customer

This is the most cool book I ever read in my entire life, a biography with animals, at last, first I saw the wolves in the cover (the french book with a black and a grey wolf), I asked my mother if could buy itand she accepted, I read it, searching for the wolves, getting interested on the storie in the war, my father speeks of the war and he knows so much about it, I was so suprised to see than the germans in the army were called nazis, thats why I'm more interested to the world war two, I finished the book and now I'm reading it again, I laugh when Misha describes the wolfcups playing and glamblimb, I love playing like this but with who? I didn't cry but I had pity, I always knew the human tyrany, I lived betrayal with my friends and somehow I knew the adults were like this too, but not all, my parents are not bad against me, NO! I'm twelve and I know what a "child" can do, I am one myself (like says my mother). I all ready heard the little red riding hood but I never liked it, I liked White Fang, and I like it now to, I always collected animals figurines but I didn't really liked dolls. Misha's the best person (maybe almost) who understands me, we both prefer animals and forest than humans and cities, this book is recomended for everyone! I have a wolfcup figurine and for a memorial name I named her: Louvie Mischke Misha Defonseca, I nickname her: Misha Mischke or Louvie. Animals do not do mortal war for rocks, but humans do, at least I know not all the humans are like the nazis, Misha's one of my heroes (the rest are fiction or...?), at last someone who can understand wolves without a pencil and a paper. If Misha learned Tae Kwon Do or else, man she'll be a great martial artist. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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0 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
incredible story of human survival, but it's more than that, June 9, 1999
By A Customer

I am aware that there are more harrowing holocaust stories out there but this book really moved me as a child's perception on the world changes as she experiences the bitterness of the real world; finding only happiness amoung the animals. As the only thing humans seem to do is destroy. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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0 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
A heart-warming account of a little girl's survival., May 25, 1998
By A Customer

The book is captivating,filled with horror,yet heart-warming. The horror Misha experienced during the Holocaust is strongly portrated, yet the love she experienced while living with wolves brings a feeling of warmth,love,and trust in a time when hate ruled.The book teaches a lot about every aspect of living.Well-worth reading! Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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2 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Will be read and reread in 1000 years., May 14, 1998
By sgaffin@natick-ccmail.army.mil (Natick, MA) - See all my reviews

It's winter and you're hiding from the World War II enemy who is paying bounty hunters to find you, deep in a Polish forest, ice cold, the snow is falling. You're wearing thin rags, starving, no food and your only tool is a kitchen knife. You have been travelling alone, hiding for a year and walked in ill-fitting shoes for over 1,000 miles. How to go on? And you're an 8-year old little girl! That was the condition of Misha Defonseca who recounts her childhood of hiding alone in the forest, and who went 2 years without speaking to a single human. All because she was Jewish. Her parents were rounded-up by the Nazis, probably taken to a concentration camp, but not before they provided for a Belgian family to raise her, should they be taken. That family turned out to be far from ideal and she ran off in a naïve quest to find her mother and father, who, she believed, were taken eastward by the Germans. By the end of the war, she had walked from Belgium, across France, Germany, Poland, parts of Russia, Ukraine, Balkans, Italy, France and back to Belgium. During her journey, she smuggled herself into, and then out of the Warsaw Ghetto. Having surreptitiously observed the atrocities carried out by the Germans, Misha learned to survive by hiding, by scavenging harvests, stealing from unsecured farm houses and eating what she found in the forest, (including worms). Desperately alone, she encountered a lone wolf in a forest, which was as hungry and lonely as she, and, incredibly, instead of eating her, the wolf adopted her. And they loved each other. She is no longer a little girl living in the same forest as wolves; she is the adopted pup of a male and female wolf, now forming a pack. She eventually becomes a member of a different pack, where the wolves trusted her enough to grant her the unbelievable compliment of having her guard the pups while they were out hunting. Many frigid winter nights were spent in a cave cuddling and playing with the wolf pups. She never went hungry while! living with wolves. Her formative years were spent relating to wolves and she feels, even after all these years, more wolf than human. Several messages come through. One should better describe degrees of evil using humankind as a criterion, but to compare loving families, wolves should be the criterion. We all have within us the ability to survive and prevail, and should never to give up. Her adventures and survival methods are significant to every soldier, and maybe to everyone. Misha's childhood story is incredible and the book hard to put aside once you start. Naturally, the war years marked her. Today, she's in her 60's, her son studies for his Ph.D., and she lives peacefully with her computer-engineer husband in a Boston suburb, along with loving her 15 cats, 3 dogs, wandering deer, family of raccoons and wild skunks. Misha has blessed us through retelling her life story and reliving her pain during the years of the Holocaust. She may be no less than a historic figure. "Misha and the Wolves"-- the story a good-little-girl searching for her parents, wandering the forests of Europe and saved by wolves-- will be retold in a thousand years, and they will wonder, "Did it really happen, could she really exist?" the way we wonder did Johnny Appleseed really exist and plant all those apple trees? Read "Misha" now, while she is still ours, before she is "discovered" by the world. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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0 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
An Amazing Gift, July 17, 2006
By Ainsley - See all my reviews

This author is a captivating writer. Having met Misha once, not one person can deny the truth behind this story. She is an amazing person and this book can only show a glimpse of what she has been put through. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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3 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
An Inspiring Story of Survival and Courage, January 18, 2002
By ERIC REITMAN (Norristown, PA United States) - See all my reviews

I have read this book several times, and each time I was inspired by Misha's determination and resourcefulness. I am Jewish myself and was hidden in an orphange in Molenbeek, not far from Anderlecht were Misha stayed.
The ability of a young girl to take care of herself in the wild and to relate to wild animals is remarkable. What is also noteworthy is the fact that she was able to function alone. That this is not easy. I know this from experience since I had to learn how to be alone because I was often ostracised due to religious prejudice as a child.
Hopefully more people who read about Misha will see the futility of hating ones fellow human beings and animals and be inspired to respect all life.

This book is definitely a treasure worth reading. If it were to be made into a movie, it would surely be inspiring!

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0 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Waiting for next book, July 18, 2000
By Barbara Luetters (Green Valley, Az USA) - See all my reviews

I read this book when it first came out and I had heard her speak in Ma. My understanding was that she was writing a sequel to this and i am very interested to read it if she does. It's a very moving story and one can't help wondering how this brought her into adulthood. Her life didn't stop here. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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