The Happiest Man on Earth

Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, a Jew second. He was proud of his country. But all of that changed on 9 November 1938 — Kristallnacht — when he was beaten by Nazi thugs, arrested, and sent to a concentration camp. Over the years that followed, Eddie survived Buchenwald, Auschwitz, and a death march, losing his family, his friends, and his homeland along the way.

Written when the author was 100 years old, this short, luminous memoir tells the story of that survival, but it is not a book about despair. Having lived through the worst of humanity, Eddie made a vow: to smile every day, to honor those who were lost, and to treat each new day as a gift. He shares the lessons that carried him — on friendship, kindness, tolerance, and hope — with the hard-won authority of a man who had every reason to give up and chose not to.

Tender, wise, and quietly devastating, The Happiest Man on Earth is both an unflinching Holocaust testimony and a deeply moving meditation on gratitude and how to live.