Hell’s Traces: One Murder, Two Families, Thirty-Five Holocaust Memorials

Ripp (Moscow to Main Street) travels to 35 Holocaust memorials in seven countries in an effort to better understand the short life of his cousin Alexandre, while ruminating on the functions of memorials. Ripp never met his cousin, though the two were close in age; Alexandre was only three years old when he was taken to Auschwitz and killed, along with other 10 family members on the author’s father’s side. The memorials themselves are given more attention than Ripp’s family history. Some of the monuments are well known, such as the main Holocaust Memorial in Berlin; others are considerably off the beaten path, such as the Grodno Ghetto memorial in Belarus and Jochen Gerz’s “disappearing memorial” in Hamburg, which slowly sank underground and is invisible from street level. Ripp is an engaging and empathic writer who has found a unique, moving way to tell his extended family’s story during the Holocaust and to memorably honor his martyred cousin. [em]Agency: Melanie Jackson Agency. (Mar.) [/em]