SWIM WITH THE SHARKS
Patricia L. Brooks, Book Reviewer May, 2019
Henry Zguda’s life comes to light in this compelling book by Katrina Shawver, a former journalist, now biographer. Zguda’s years passing through the horrible concentration camps of the Hitler Regime before and during World War II are chronicled in this superior book that covers a significant part of world history. Shawver writes about Henry’s great resolve as he maneuver’s his way through the system put in place by the Germans. He learns to find his way in varying jobs and by befriending the right people that make him important enough to be kept alive for their use.
Shawver has done extensive research on this era, including travel to the camps. This writing is a great service to all those wanting to know more about the atrocities of the holocaust and the Nazi era, and what the Jews and other captives experienced from one who survived it first-hand. In their many conversations, Henry and Katrina relive for us countless stories of the deaths and senseless acts of torture in the camps by the guards of Auschwitz I and II, as well as the ironies of it all.
This is no easy read, but a read worth seizing for the attention to detail of a story that honors the life of a man of Polish decent who once swam for his country and fought his way out of a Nazi camp. Although he was not a Jew, he lived amongst the Jews as they did
in the camps to be here to tell their stories too. Thank you to Henry Zguda and Katrina Shriver for this effort. My husband Earl and I recommend this book for its historical value and biographical excellence.