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The 25TH HOUR is a novel written by the Romanian writer Conatantin Virgil Gheorghiu. It tells stories of those who suffered the horrors of World War II, most notably Johann Moritz, a Romanian farmer wronged by a policeman who wants to get rid of him to get his wife, by listing his name with the sent Jews to work in forced labor, by taking advantage of the similarity of his name to the names of the Jews despite his being Christian, at the time when ethnic or religious identity is a major problem for minorities in Europe. Johann’s disastrous trip of suffering starts between prisons and camps of various armies and countries for thirteen years without guilt committed.One of the novel’s themes is about those who pay tax of absurd wars for their ethnic or religious belongingness even if it is by mistake, intrigue, or fate. The second theme represents the low value of the individual under a strict international bureaucrat system which does not care about human thoughts and feelings and considers man as a mere number in the records. The third theme is the dominance of machines in various aspects of life and the substitution of man to became a slave of the machine after he was its master.This novel plays a significant role in sounding the alarm and awareness before it is too late for the humans who will become a worthless minority that have no job other than managing, maintaining, and cleaning the legions of machines.Qutaiba Ibrahim Al-KhafajiCollege of Education for HumanitiesUniversity of Mosul#Share_your_Readings