By Chance Alone is the firsthand memoir of Tibor "Max" Eisen, a Hungarian Jew deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944. Finalist for CBC Canada Reads and the RBC Taylor Prize, the book traces his experience from selection and forced labour to the winter 1945 death march.
At fifteen, Eisen endured brutal work details, a severe injury and a life‑saving operation by a Polish prisoner-doctor who later placed him on hospital duty, a turn that helped spare him from immediate execution. The narrative follows his liberation, the struggle to rebuild in postwar Europe and his immigration to Canada in 1949.
This is a clear, sober testimony that situates personal experience within wider wartime history. Ideal for readers and students of World War II and Holocaust studies, it highlights themes of survival, memory and long-term recovery.
- Firsthand Holocaust testimony
- Historical detail on Auschwitz I and Birkenau
- Themes: survival, memory, postwar healing