Journey of Ashes: A Boyhood in the Holocaust traverses a fine line between humor and tragedy, and presents a fascinating, lively memoir of a young boy (eventually a Schindler Jew) growing up in Krakow surrounded by the German occupation. It also depicts his family's striving for normalcy in the face of the unimaginable. Many people, especially children, in the context of being terrorized by the Nazi regime, still maintained a strong semblance of what it meant to be ordinarily human. They laughed, argued, loved and feasted, and nurtured each other, even as their world was eroding. For most...