Holocaust memoir gripping

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It is hard to imagine what anyone would do to survive in the midst of war. Would you chat up the guards for better rations? Would you lie to other prisoners if it meant not admitting to yourself that they were going to die? Would you sleep with enemy soldiers for warmth and protection?

It’s impossible to know.

Paul Glaser’s “Dancing with the Enemy: My Family’s Holocaust Secret” tells the story of Glaser’s Aunt Rosie, who did all of those things and much more to survive four internment camps during World War II — including the infamous Auschwitz.

astory switches between Glaser’s investigation of his family’s then-hidden Jewish ancestry and the story of Rosie, told through her diary, letters and poetry. The story is heart-wrenching.

Nearly every child learns the history of the Third Reich and Hitler’s attempt to eradicate anyone with Jewish ancestry, but those stories are sanitized accounts told by the victors. Even “The Diary of Anne Frank,” which is on nearly every U.S. elementary school’s required reading list, leaves out many gruesome truths of the war.

“Dancing with the Enemy” paints a fuller picture of the war. It details the scars, physical, mental and emotional, left by wounds created by neighbors, friends and country. For Rosie, betrayal first comes from her ex-husband, jealous of her success as a dance instructor after their marriage dissolves. Next, from her lover, who turns in her hiding family for the reward.

As her world spirals into chaos, Rosie lunges at any opportunity to control her life. Little things, like acting as liaison between SS officers and those imprisoned in her bunker and keeping a hidden journal of her days, are a source of optimism in a desolate situation.

As for Glaser, it is not until he is in his 30s that he learns that he is Jewish. His father, Rosie’s brother, is so scarred by the Holocaust that he cannot speak of it and hides his heritage even from his children. The chapters where Glaser speaks are a hard reminder that this systematic murder of millions ended only 68 years ago.

An astonishing piece of this book is the photos. Pictures of Rosie are peppered through the story, pictures of her life before the war, of her in the camps, there is even a photo of her the day after she is freed by the Swiss Red Cross, 84 pounds and haunted.

The first-person storytelling adds a dimension of reality that draws the readers into the horrors of the moment. The vision of Rosie dragging a small boy’s body out of a recently used gas chamber was palpable while I swallowed up the words. The cold snow billowing around her as she watched a friend die by the side of the road nipped at me as well.

This is certainly not an easy book to read. It is not just the description of death and abuse that makes it difficult either: Rosie describes the abandonment of Jews in the Netherlands when Queen Wilhemina flees to London, the profiteering of friends and how her government sent her a warm coat after her release followed by a bill for the garment a few months later.

There is little that disappoints in “Dancing with the Enemy.”

Glaser uses honesty and simplicity to share his family’s secret. There is no mystery, no fictional flourishes, just easy storytelling on a hard topic.