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

“I have lived for a century and I know what it is to stare evil in the face”.

These are the words of 100-year-old Eddie Jaku who is more than just a survivor of the holocaust. He spent years evading death, barely surviving through one of the most unimaginable atrocities and intense, inexplicable hatred ever experienced by humanity. Eddie Jaku is no longer surviving to get through each day, he is liberated and living with a purpose.

In the first page of his memoir, Eddie Jaku introduces himself as your new friend, and as his new friend, he shares with you his story of great loss, deep love, grief, and survival. He was born Abraham Jakubowicz in Leipzig, Germany in 1920 to Isidore and Lina. He and his family were proud Germans and in his own words, he says "we were Germans first, Germans second and Jewish at home".

When Eddie turned 13, the year Hitler came into power, he experienced his first instance of discrimination as a Jew when he was no longer able to attend the local high school. After observing the growing anti-Sentimitsm in the country, his father Isidore organised forged papers and a new name for Eddie. Eddie adopted a new identity and was sent to boarding school where he studied engineering and graduated after 5 years as a 'toolmaker'. In 1938 Eddie made, what he calls the biggest mistake of his life, the decision to return to his family home only to find them missing. In the early hours of the morning, his home is raided and Eddie is taken as a prisoner to his first concentration camp. From there, Eddie leads the reader on a journey through Belgium, France, Auschwitz and provides a glimpse into the ghastly nightmare that was his life for over a decade. He introduces us to the friendships that extricated him from the hands of evil and provided him with the love he needed when he was trapped within the barbed wires of moral turpitude.

Eddie's story is one of hope, and the power of his indomitable spirit to persevere in the face of evil. Despite the horrific cruelty he faced, he does not wallow in self-pity or clutch onto hatred for his oppressors. Instead, he chooses happiness and freedom.

During the era of the holocaust, the Nazis targeted women, men, children, and tragically over 6 million Jewish people died. At Auschwitz alone, 1.1 million people died and millions of other victims lost their lives to the inhuman persecution of Hitler and the Nazi regime. Eddie encourages you to inspect your own life and his memoir serves as a reminder to be grateful and to live life-not just to survive, but with meaning and purpose.