Life and Loss in the Shadow of the Holocaust

Life and Loss in the Shadow of the Holocaust
Author: Rebecca Boehling
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2011-06-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107377692

A family's recently discovered correspondence provides the inspiration for this fascinating and deeply moving account of Jewish family life before, during and after the Holocaust. Rebecca Boehling and Uta Larkey reveal how the Kaufmann-Steinberg family was pulled apart under the Nazi regime and dispersed over three continents. The family's unique eight-way correspondence across two generations brings into sharp focus the dilemma of Jews in Nazi Germany facing the painful decisions of when, if and to where they should emigrate. The authors capture the family members' fluctuating emotions of hope, optimism, resignation and despair as well as the day-to-day concerns, experiences and dynamics of family life despite increasing persecution and impending deportation. Headed by two sisters who were among the first female business owners in Essen, the family was far from conventional and their story contributes new dimensions to our understanding of Jewish life in Germany and in exile during these dark years.

In the Shadow of the Shtetl

In the Shadow of the Shtetl
Author: Jeffrey Veidlinger
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 441
Release: 2013-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0253011523

A history based on interviews with hundreds of Ukrainian Jews who survived both Hitler and Stalin, recounting experiences ordinary and extraordinary. The story of how the Holocaust decimated Jewish life in the shtetls of Eastern Europe is well known. Still, thousands of Jews in these small towns survived the war and returned afterward to rebuild their communities. The recollections of some four hundred returnees in Ukraine provide the basis for Jeffrey Veidlinger’s reappraisal of the traditional narrative of twentieth-century Jewish history. These elderly Yiddish speakers relate their memories of Jewish life in the prewar shtetl, their stories of survival during the Holocaust, and their experiences living as Jews under Communism. Despite Stalinist repressions, the Holocaust, and official antisemitism, their individual remembrances of family life, religious observance, education, and work testify to the survival of Jewish life in the shadow of the shtetl to this day.

Shadow Life

Shadow Life
Author: Barry Denenberg
Publisher:
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2005
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780439416788

Recounts the plight of the Frank family, including their years in Germany, their flight to Amsterdam, their two years in hiding, their eventual discovery, the deaths of Anne, her sister and mother, and the survival of Otto Frank.

War in the Shadow of Auschwitz

War in the Shadow of Auschwitz
Author: John Wiernicki
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2001-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780815607229

1943: Polish underground fighter John Wiernicki is captured and beaten by the Gestapo, then shipped to Auschwitz. In this chilling memoir, Wiernicki, a Gentile, details "life" in the infamous death camp, and his battle to survive, physically and morally, in the face of utter evil. The author begins by remembering his aristocratic youth, an idyllic time shattered by German invasion. The ensuing dark days of occupation would fire the adolescent Wiernicki with a burning desire to serve Poland, a cause that led him to valiant action and eventual arrest. As a young non-Jew, Wiernicki was acutely sensitive to the depravity and injustice that engulfed him at Auschwitz. He bears witness to the harrowing selection and extermination of Jews doomed by birth to the gas chambers, to savage camp policies, brutal SS doctors, and rampant corruption with the system. He notes the difference in treatment between Jews and non-Jews. And he relives fearful unexpected encounters with two notorious "Angels of Death": Josef Mengele and Heinz Thilo. War in the Shadow of Auschwitz is an important historical and personal document. Its vivid portrait of prewar and wartime Poland, and of German concentration camps, provides a significant addition to the growing body of testimony by gentile survivors and a heartfelt contribution to fostering comprehension and understanding.

The Girl in the Green Sweater

The Girl in the Green Sweater
Author: Krystyna Chiger
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2008-09-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1429961252

Based on the true story explored in the Academy Award–nominated film, In Darkness, this holocaust memoir is “a gripping account of survival and friendship” (Booklist). In 1943, with Lvov’s 150,000 Jews having been exiled, killed, or forced into ghettos and facing extermination, a group of Polish Jews daringly sought refuge in the city’s sewer system. The last surviving member this group, Krystyna Chiger, shares one of the most intimate, harrowing and ultimately triumphant tales of survival to emerge from the Holocaust. The Girl in the Green Sweater is Chiger’s heartwrenching first-person account of the fourteen months she spent with her family in the fetid, underground sewers of Lvov. The Girl in the Green Sweater is also the story of Leopold Socha, the group’s unlikely savior. A Polish Catholic and former thief, Socha risked his life to help Chiger’s underground family survive, bringing them food, medicine, and supplies. A moving memoir of a desperate escape and life under unimaginable circumstances, The Girl in the Green Sweater is ultimately a tale of intimate survival, friendship, and redemption. “With a powerful story and a keen voice, Chiger’s Holocaust survivor’s tale is a worthy and memorable addition to the canon.” —Publishers Weekly “Chiger’s exceptional story . . . stands out among the many Holocaust survival narratives as one that will touch the hearts of teens and adults alike and bring home the horrors of this very dark period in history.” —School Library Journal “Through the eyes of the child that Krystyna Chiger was in Lvov, Poland in 1939 we see the whole moral universe.” —Naomi Ragen, author of The Saturday Wife and The Covenant “[A] gripping memoir.” —Kirkus Reviews

In the Shadow of the Holocaust

In the Shadow of the Holocaust
Author: Yosef Grodzinsky
Publisher: Monroe, Me. : Common Courage Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2004
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

This is the story of Jews in displaced persons camps and their forced role in the founding of Israel.

In the Shadow of the Holocaust

In the Shadow of the Holocaust
Author: Aaron Hass
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 198
Release: 1996-07-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521498937

Drawing on interviews and survey materials, Aaron Hass provides a vibrant account of the experiences of Holocaust survivors' children.

In The Shadow Of The Banyan

In The Shadow Of The Banyan
Author: Vaddey Ratner
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2012-09-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1849837619

A stunning, powerful debut novel set against the backdrop of the Cambodian War, perfect for fans of Chris Cleave and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. Soon the family's world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in the chaos of revolution and forced exodus. Over the next four years, as she endures the deaths of family members, starvation, and brutal forced labour, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of childhood - the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father. In a climate of systematic violence where memory is sickness and justification for execution, Raami fights for her improbable survival. Displaying the author's extraordinary gift for language, In the Shadow of the Banyanis testament to the transcendent power of narrative and a brilliantly wrought tale of human resilience. 'In the Shadow of the Banyanis one of the most extraordinary and beautiful acts of storytelling I have ever encountered' Chris Cleave, author of The Other Hand 'Ratner is a fearless writer, and the novel explores important themes such as power, the relationship between love and guilt, and class. Most remarkably, it depicts the lives of characters forced to live in extreme circumstances, and investigates how that changes them. To read In the Shadow of the Banyan is to be left with a profound sense of being witness to a tragedy of history' Guardian 'This is an extraordinary debut … as beautiful as it is heartbreaking' Mail on Sunday

The 23rd Psalm

The 23rd Psalm
Author: George Lucius Salton
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2004-04-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0299179745

"For the next three years, Luzek slaved and barely survived in ten concentration camps, including Rzeszow, Plaszow, Flossenburg, Colmar, Sachsenhausen, Braunschweig, Ravensbruck, and Wobbelin. Cattle cars filled with skeletal men emptied into a train yard in Colmar, France. Luzek and the other prisoners marched under the whips and fists of SS guards. But here, unlike the taunts and rocks from villagers in Poland and Germany, there was applause. "I could clearly hear the people calling: 'Shame! Shame!' . . . Suddenly, I realized that the people of Golmar were applauding us! They were condemning the inhumanity of the Germans!"".