I’ve always been drawn to books around this period in time, and while I have read numerous accounts of the atrocities that took place, I continue to shake my head at how something so awful could have ever happened. While many of the stories we hear tell a similar tale, no two stories are truly the same and each deserves to be told. What They Didn’t Burn is a beautiful, emotional and powerful tribute to the authors father, Josef Lajtner, an ordinary man that exhibited such extraordinary bravery, resilience, perseverance and a desire to survive this very dark time.

Thank you to @NetGalley, @SparkPress and the author, @MelLaytner for the opportunity to read this digital ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. All thoughts are my own.

I really enjoyed this book :) sometimes it went to detailed for me but I can appreciate the research that went into creating this book :) adding in the photos of evidence and facts was a beautiful touch and nice to reference to :) also adding in ‘where everyone ended up’ was great too, knowing where their lives took them was good to know . Loved this book and learning more about history :)

This book was amazing and inspiring! I was drawn in from the first page and couldn’t stop. There are certain times in life and history that shouldn’t be erased or forgotten and this is one of them. I cannot imagine finding out things the author did about someone you thought you knew. But really he was so much more!!

I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book.

This incredible, personal journey of a son walking through the roughest years of his father's life. Laytner only discovers the terrors of his father after the father passes. History will never share the full story of what occurred during WW2 because the horrors couldn't be expressed or communicated fully to those who didn't share the experiences.

Thankfully, this son decided it was important enough to dig deeper. Mel turns his journalistic knowledge towards the subject and does a thorough investigation of a terrible time. Pulling threads from many different directions, he recreates a tapestry to share with the world of lives that survived and succeeded. Mel Laytner traveled the globe to look at crumbling documents and find answers to how his father survived the Holocaust.

It's an informative read that History students will enjoy and the world must not forget!

Goaded by the thought his children would never have first-hand testimony from his father about the Nazi Labour Camp experience, our author stumbles upon evidence of proof of some of the stories he heard at the older man's knee. The journey from then on would appear on this evidence to be a couple of decades of research and problem-solving, taking a journalistic eye to everything and demanding confirmation of what the family had been told.

Josef Lajtner came from a wealthy, industrial family in what was before the War – and has been since – central Poland. Facing codified, official anti-Semitism, and then life in the Ghetto, he ended up getting rounded up by the Nazis and sent as a valued worker to Blechhammer, a camp in the greater Auschwitz scheme of things, where he was a labourer at one of two sites trying to make synthetic oil for the war effort. We don't of course see the man at work, but we do see a lot of labour camp life – the rationing, the lack of clothing, the cold, the sheer chance needed at times to survive.

But was it always chance that got you over one hurdle after another, one day closer to liberation? Josef always said luck, above money, smarts and skill was what kept you going. Can our author find the people and paper trail that leads him to the real Josef, and see if that was the case? Was there more to the man in the camp than anecdotal evidence suggests?

The answers to those last two questions are hesitantly positive. People who might or might not have a perfect grip on their memories of Lajtner suggest a certain kind of character that didn't come across in the home, and fluke finds in archives imply a bit of wheeling and dealing helped Lady Luck along.

But in reporting this trip to explore the archives and Polish sites of the story, and in discussing that aspect of Nazi research, and in delving into that side of the Camp histories, this book is rather a piecemeal effort. The narrative, both of his research and of his father, comes across as really quite scattershot. One whole chapter looking at one example of the care a proper journalist should take concerning Nazi statistics should be a footnote, a DVD cut scene. There is much less of the compelling storyline than in similar books.

But at least the book does open up and look away from the Lajtner family. I'd never heard of these venues, when I should have in light of how the bombers the Yanks sent their way towards the close of the war had to fly over Auschwitz-Birkenau, which notably never got attacked. The book obviously seeks authority, proof and clarity of evidence, and in this way the many people from Blechhammer become the title subjects. The survivors and their tales, and the memories of those who never returned, are allowed here to become what the Nazis could never burn, and this with its loose handling of the main subject's life story almost becomes a valued collective tribute to them all.

(Three and a half stars as a read, reluctantly given as puerile rating badges don't fit with the seriousness of the contents.)

This book is meticulously researched and incredibly well-written. It is not easy to read due to the content, but easy to read due to fantastic writing. I find it difficult to describe how the book left me feeling after finishing reading...It reads like a good memoir: enough detail and description where warranted, brief mentions or skipping of irrelevant information. I can only describe it as it feels 'light' to read. I started the book and time flew by, I was absorbed a bubble of images created in my mind by the words I read. When I say it felt 'light' to read, it's the only word I can find to describe how I experience the best written books. I don't read words on a page anymore, instead I am transported into a movie created by my mind. I am in a bubble,and the real world fades.
There is nothing light about this book though. The content is dark, disturbing, frightening, horrific, and 100% true. It's factual, but evokes strong emotions. It's not dry and dusty, instead reads like fiction through good writing. It doesn't dramatize or become hyper emotional for effect. It's just so real. So frighteningly real and true.

This is one of those really important books that everyone should read. Let these stories never be forgotten. I admire the author for the years of work and effort put into this project and produce this truly important testament of the strength, endurance and resilience of surviving unimaginable cruelty inflicted by people onto people.
This book will stay with me forever, same as "Prisoner 88", who guest lectured once when I was in university.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing an ARC for review purposes. I am grateful for the opportunity.

A fascinating perspective on a time of our history which must keep being discussed so we can continue to learn from the past. Reminiscent of some aspects of the Tattooist of Auschwitz, this book calls the reader to consider the perspectives of people who did what they must to survive against all odds.

What they didn't burn is really a fitting name for the journey tell in this book. As a complete outsider from the events narrated, was very interesting to see the POV from a son of an holocaust surviver specially about how difficult can be to navigate the topic when it brings such hard memories to their loved ones, and about how they identify their parents story effect or lack of in their life. It was a very powerful thing to be able to go through this journey with the author and one that we all can learn about how generally speaking, we as younger generations often forget to appreciate the life's and stories of our parents and grandparents and I shared the sentiment of regret of not listening enough of my grandma's stories even worse not caring enough.