The Happiest Man on Earth: The Beautiful Life of an Auschwitz Survivor

“My dear new friend [...] I have lived for a century, and I know what it is to stare evil in the face. I have seen the very worst of mankind, the horrors of the death camps, the Nazi efforts to exterminate my life, and the lives of all my people […] But I now consider myself the happiest man on earth.”

In the first sentence of his memoir, Eddie Jaku reveals the central triumph of his life: Despite having seen humanity at its absolute worst, he has not become bitter or hateful. He still loves the human race, and greets his new reader as a “dear friend.” His Resilience in the Face of Unimaginable Horrors and openheartedness, which has kept him alive and full of hope for over a century, is the source of his happiness.

“Nothing could shake my father’s patriotism and pride in Germany. We considered ourselves German first, German second, and then Jewish.”

One of the many ironies of the Holocaust is that most of the Germans who were scapegoated and murdered as Jewish “traitors” were just as patriotic (if not more so) as their non-Jewish fellow citizens. Many Jews served in WWI on the German side and were decorated for their valor, but this did not save them from persecution or extermination under the Nazis. Eddie’s father, a skilled mechanic, helped the Germans manufacture weapons for WWI, and (like Eddie himself) was devoted to his country. His family was not devoutly religious: Judaism played a very small part in their lives. However, in the eyes of the Nazis, their religion alone marked them for destruction.