Jaku, Eddie: 1920-2021

The Happiest Man on Earth, 2020 - Thematic Parallels: Holocaust

Jaku, Eddie: The Happiest Man on Earth, 2020
This memoir details with Jalku's survival through the Holocaust’s horrors and his subsequent journey toward healing, resilience, and joy.
The following books are thematically similar. They lend themselves well to being read in groups, compared with one another, or used to teach a similar topic over an extended period with a class:
- Foer, Jonathan Safran: Everything Is Illuminated, 2002, ~110pp
  This novel explores Holocaust memory, loss, identity, and the reconstruction of history.
  - Both works stress the possibility of light, healing, and human connection after trauma. They are ultimately about the human quest to make sense of life in the aftermath of devastation, and converge in exploring Holocaust memory, family, storytelling, and the pursuit of hope in the face of trauma.
- Hegi, Ursula: Stones from the River, 1994, ~520pp
  This novel examines the societal complicity and personal moral choices in Nazi Germany.
  - These novels emphasize memory, resilience, and humanity in the face of Nazi oppression, while exposing the dangers of prejudice and silence. "Stones from the River" does this through fiction that mirrors history, "The Happiest Man" on Earth through lived experience.
- Wiesel, Elie: Night, 1960, ~100pp
  This is a survivor memoir and account of Wiesel's experience in Nazi concentration camps addressing trauma, loss, faith, and identity—paralleling Jaku’s personal account.
  - Both works are Holocaust memoirs rooted in witness, survival, and the responsibility to remember. The difference is that Wiesel’s voice is raw, immediate, and centered on loss, while Jaku’s—written in old age—is reflective, offering a message of hope and resilience. But together, they insist on the moral duty to keep Holocaust memory alive.
List of general discussion questions on Holocaust (pdf)
List of essay prompts on Holocaust (pdf)