Mala's Cat: The moving and unforgettable true story of one girl's survival during the Holocaust

There have been many books written about World War II, the Nazi regime, the holocaust and the fate of millions of Jews. Each vivadly depicts the horrors and the brutalities that occured . This book is a memoir recounted through the eyes and memories of one girl, Mala.
"Mala's Cat" is written in a very naive fashion and reads as a dialogue between you and the author. She recounts her early childhood in a Jewish Eastern European village. The family is poor but at the same time very happy and filled with a loving family. Because she is fair and blue-eyed Mala looks more Christian and not Jewish. As the Nazis occupy more and more of the area and place more on more restrictions on the Jews, at the age of 12 she becomes the major source of food for the family through her begging and trading in the surrounding villages. When her family is taken to the camps or killed she is forced to pass herself off as a non-Jew and survive through years of deception. Her story is almost fantastical but this is a true memoir.
Reading this book felt as if I were sitting with a close older relative, perhaps a grandmother or aunt, who was passing down stories of her life. It was very deliberately word. The horrors were told but so matter of factly and bluntly without horrific details that it seemed surreal knowing what we know of events. It was as if the author wanted to insure that we know what happened but did not want to traumatize the reader. In my opinion this made it seem more juvenile than it should have been coming from an adult.
That said I would reccommend this book to anyone.

A harrowing true story of the survival of 12 year old Jewish, Polish girl during the second world war. A must read. Should become a school reading requirement.

Mala grew up in a Jewish family in a small Polish village and had an idyllic and happy childhood. In 1939 when the Germans invaded, she was 12 years old and life changed irrevocably. As segregation and starvation became the norm, Mala realised that she could be mistaken for a Polish Christian with her golden hair and blue eyes and she became responsible for scouring the village and woods in search of food for the family. As she was returning from one of these trips, she saw her family being rounded up for deportation and has no option but to embark on a journey of survival, fending for herself for five long years as she travels across the country and the continent accompanied only by Malach, her cat. This book is the story of that journey, written by Mala much later in her life.

This is a quite extraordinary story. Had it been fiction it might have been discounted as being too unbelievable to be taken seriously. But it is not fiction, it is Mala’s memoir and the true story of her fight to survive against all odds, aided and abetted by Malach. In some instances the naivety and confidence of youth worked in her favour, whereas in others she is deliberately disingenuous, hiding her language skills and approaching members of the Gestapo and other potential adversaries as an innocent, and somewhat precocious child who had no fear of them whatsoever – this often got her the results she wanted. The cat is an almost constant presence, “almost” being the operative word, and is a bit of an unsolved anomaly. Overall the book is charming, courageous, unusual and quirky and gives an interesting perspective on the Nazi occupation.

However, whilst the story telling was very engaging, it was at times a disjointed and clumsy delivery. Although I am reluctant to criticise such a heroic feat of survival, there is no doubt that the book is badly written, using almost childlike language. This may be because English is not Mala’s native language and as there is no indication that it was translated, I guess that she wrote it in English.

I would certainly recommend this book to anyone. It is an easy read and a very interesting one.

A holocaust book unlike any I've read before. This autobiographical novel follows Mala, a 12-year-old Jewish girl in Poland, as she struggles to survive during the second world war. Since Mala looks just like a "Christian" girl, she's able to escape the massacre of the rest of her family and pass herself off as Polish in a series of increasingly unbelievable situations. The circumstances she finds herself in are so bizarre that if this had been a novel I'd have written them off as unrealistic, but the fact that they're true makes this an incredible story of survival.

One of the novel's strengths is also its weakest point: Mala's Cat is written by Mala herself, as a much older woman. While it's wonderful to hear Mala tell her own story, she also uses quite a blunt, childish writing style. This suits the beginning of the book, when Mala is only twelve, but by the end of the novel she's almost eighteen, yet still reads like a child. The story offers a very sparse narrative, simply describing what she did and the basics of what she thought, without much emotional depth or any internal character struggles. Even though this is a first-person memoir, when I got to the end I still felt I knew very little about what Mala was like as a person.

In many ways, it feels unfair to criticise the memoir of someone who has survived so much adversity. As a person, Mala's intelligence and resilience are nothing less than remarkable. As a memoir, however, the story is lacking. While her experiences were unique, I'd love to hear more about how Mala felt about everything: how did it feel spending five years pretending to be someone else? How did it feel working in the country whose soldiers had killed your family? How did she justify lying all the time with her orthodox faith? I would have loved more a more detailed discussion of all these questions, but instead they were only treated in a cursory fashion.

Overall, Mala's Cat is a truly remarkable, unusual, holocaust story. It's eye-opening and easy to read, and I could see it becoming a go-to read for young teens learning about WW2. While I think the novel could have benefitted from more depth, the story as it stands is still an incredible tale of courage and survival.

But one final thought: for a book entitled Mala's Cat, I wish it had a little more cat.

A remarkable memoir of courage, resilience and determination to survive. Only a child at the time, the author faced unimaginable horrors and situations. Her pragmatic approach in dealing with impossible choices is harrowing and often shocking. Deeply moving.