Praise for Guarded By Angels
"Behind the mere mechanics of the story is the realization that this happened just 60 years ago.
The line between life today in Europe and N.America and the Europe of 1939 is all too thin. Technology has changed our lives but people still live these life experiences of the Elsner family in Africa, Asia, and S.America today.
Everyone needs to read this book and take inspiration from it, especially the younger generations who cannot quite believe that this could be "real". Life is not just merely about what you own, it is about what you do and how you respect others. It is about how society allows those with power to treat people also. It is the unheard voices that still cry out uncounted today.
Alan has laboured hard over this book, the Elsner family is sharing a true gift in this recounting of all the details of this darkest time for their family and it deserves to have the widest possible audience. The story may not be market or Hollywood "fashionable" but the message is timeless and essential.
This book is deeply moving and inspirational - I hope that your purchase this book and tell other people about it.
-- David R. Webber
In writing the story of his father, uncle and their cousin during the Second World War, Elsner brings a graphic yet immensely personal dimension to this tragic period of world and Jewish history. The narrative is lean which only serves to enhance the amazing story he tells. I would imagine that most readers like me, will devour this book in one sitting. The story it tells, of three young men being tossed by the diabolic caprices of two of the most evil regimes known to man, was the story of millions during this period. Most of them did not have the "troop of guardian angels" looking after them and perished like just so much excess baggage of humanity.
This book should become a basic educational text along with "Darkness at Noon", "1984" and "Animal Farm". Those immortal works of fiction depict the environment of totalitarian evil. Elsner's book is a true story of those who, by chance, time and time again, were saved and saved themselves. Its value is both in its form, as a well written book by a professional, and in content as a testament of those who went through the valley of the shadow of death and survived to tell the tale. Future generations must learn what was done in the name of ideologies which belittled the basic human need to be different.
Finally, the book demonstrates again the truth of the saying that while the Jews were not the only victims of Hitler, the Nazis and all their myriad helpers, all the Jews were targets and easy ones too. For Jews, my enemy's enemy was not necessarily my friend, but quite often my enemy too.
-- Avi Linden