Tag: Holocaust survivors

nonfiction

Book Review: The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed by Wendy Lower

Stephanie1 Comment

It was a combing through of my library’s catalog (the old person impulse to still refer to it as a ‘card catalog’! I have a scar on my hand from dropping and thus trying to catch the H drawer of my library’s card catalog when I was 12. I think of it as a super cool natural bookworm tattoo…) to look for Jewish books that I learned about the existence of The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed by Wendy Lower (Mariner Books, 2021). I knew I had to read it – I feel a big responsibility to read everything I can handle about the Holocaust, but I had to wait until I had the mental space for it. And in trying to read all the ebooks that have been sitting on my list for a bit, this book came up…and it was finally in.

The Ravine covers a photograph that captures murder in progress. The photograph, shown in detail several times throughout the book, shows a woman in the process of being shot and falling into a deep ravine, a small child at her side and an even smaller child tucked in to her lap. Several men stand behind her, one who is doing the shooting. A cloud of gunsmoke hangs in the air.

Wendy Lower, scholar and researcher, worked diligently over a long period of time to identify not only the people in the photo, but also the photographer who took it. The Ravine documents this arduous process, which takes her across countries, deep into archives and down village streets around the world. Phone calls, documents, interviews, research into cameras; Ms. Lower used all the skills she had, along with the skills of other people, to help flesh out the story of this horrifying moment captured for posterity.

Not an easy book to read. The book gets into some truly gutting details about the horrors of the Holocaust, and there were a few times I struggled to continue reading. It’s also a research-heavy book, written in a fairly academic style, so this isn’t something the casual reader is likely to pick up for a relaxing weekend read.

It does tell a story of how intense historical research can be, and the lengths and depths researchers need to go to in order to ensure that their work is correct. The Holocaust isn’t over; its effects are still felt in the remaining survivors and in the family members who were affected by what their loved ones suffered. This is evident in some of the interviews Ms. Lower conducts; the subjects break down and struggle to answer her questions. This is still a raw subject for them, and this book does a good job showing how the pain hasn’t ended.

The Ravine is a heavy, heavy book, but a worthy read.

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Book Review: The Choice: Embrace the Possible by Dr. Edith Eva Eger

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I feel such a responsibility to read memoirs by Holocaust survivors. So much history, so much suffering, so much to learn about how not just to survive but even thrive while carrying some of the worst trauma imaginable. I’m careful about how and when I read these books, however; I recognize when I’m more able to engage with these types of books, in order to preserve my mental health (especially with the constant chaos going on in the world today), and hopefully you are too. On my last library trip, I decided I was ready for The Choice: Embrace the Possible by Dr. Edith Eva Eger (Scribner, 2017), a Holocaust survivor, and I’m glad I was. This is a remarkable book.

Edith Eger was only sixteen years old when she wound up in Auschwitz. Her parents were killed immediately; her oldest sister had been away playing violin concerts, so she hadn’t made the trip, but Edith and her other sister clung to each other, helping each other to survive and risking their lives for each other. Throughout her time there, through illness, starvation, grief, and pain, Edith managed to maintain an attitude that helped her make it through the grueling days of suffering, and afterwards, trying to rebuild a life without her parents and beloved boyfriend, she carried on with that same attitude, marrying, having a family, and eventually earning a PhD and growing a successful therapy practice. Her story is one of resilience, a message about how we can’t always choose our circumstances, but we can choose our attitude towards them, and some attitudes are more helpful for survival – and thriving! – than others.

Dr. Eger’s story is a tough one. Her descriptions of conditions, of the depravity forced upon the prisoners in Auschwitz and the other camps she spent time in are horrifying, and there were definitely times I had to set the book down and take a few breaths. It’s not an easy story to listen to, but these stories are so, so important. We can’t let this history be lost; we have to take it in, carry it with us into the future, and make sure our children understand what the outcome of such hatred looks like.

Reading about Dr. Eger’s successful practice, not only after having survived the Holocaust but after having earned her PhD as an adult student, filled me with hope (and also more than a little jealousy for her clients; she sounds like she’s a remarkable therapist!). Maybe it’s not too late for me to become something more than what I am now. If she can do it, maybe I can, too…

Truly a heart-wrenching, inspiring book, one I’m very glad made its way to my TBR.

Visit Dr. Edith Eger’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

nonfiction

Book Review: 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz by Heather Dune Macadam

Stephanie1 Comment

I will never understand the Holocaust. I don’t know that anyone will. Because there’s no good answer to all the many, many whys and hows of it. Why would anyone do that? How could anyone act with such cruelty? I don’t know. I don’t know how the perpetrators never once took a hard look at what they were doing and went, “Wait a minute…” But I keep trying, because these stories need to be told and read and shared, and that’s how 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz by Heather Dune Macadam (Citadel Press, 2019) ended up on my TBR. I heard so much about this a year or two ago, and it was just now that I had the mental space for it. It was worth the wait.

In 1942, 999 young unmarried women in Slovakia, including a lot of teenagers, were rounded up and shipped off, away from their homes and friends and family, under the guise of three months of forced government work. They were the first group to whom this happened. Instead of working in a shoe factory, as they expected, they were taken to Auschwitz, where their nightmare began. Working outside in the worst of weather with no shoes (or wooden sandals at best) and only a thin dress to cover their emaciated bodies. Starvation. Shaved heads that blistered in the sun. Barely adequate water, if they were lucky. Typhus. Injuries that went untreated. Being made to stand naked outdoors for hours in all kinds of weather in order to be counted. The threat of death, yours or someone you loved, at every possible moment. There was no end to the nightmares suffered by the young women imprisoned there, and Ms. Macadam doesn’t shy away from the details.

This is a heavy book, filled with the stories and memories of the few who survived, and the stories and blessed memories of those who did not. The survivors’ pain is evident in what they choose to share. Ms. Macadam points out several times things that are not common knowledge and that most survivors don’t share, due to shame or embarrassment, even all these years later. They still cry as they share what they went through, and when they share stories about their families who were torn from them and murdered solely for being Jewish. It’s a heartbreaking book, one that I had to set down a few times and take a lot of deep breaths before I could continue reading, so great is the pain on each page.

It’s hard to write about these books that are so emotionally difficult to read, in a way that will convince people to read them as well. “Here’s this book that highlights the worst of humanity and that deftly portrays images that (hopefully) only show up in nightmares these days; you should read it!” is one heck of a take, right? But you should. It brings honor to the survivors, honor to the memories of those who didn’t survive, when we read their stories and further our commitment to speaking out against human rights violations and working for a better world. It helps us to recognize the signs of fascist governments that are bound on stripping our fellow citizens of their rights and of their humanity. ‘Never again’ isn’t just a slogan; it’s a directive. And if we’re truly committed to an atrocity like the Holocaust never happening again, it’s up to us to understand it to the best of our ability. And that is why we should read these kinds of books, even when it’s hard and unpleasant and scary.

Heather Dune Macadam brings to life a world that no longer exists in pre-war Slovakia, and shows us the horrors that happen when we stop recognizing the humanity in others. This is a deeply important book, one that I recommend highly, but it’s okay to wait until you’re able to handle it, because it’s a lot.

Visit Heather Dune Macadam’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

nonfiction

Book Review: Case Closed: Holocaust Survivors in Postwar America by Beth B. Cohen

Stephanie3 Comments

There are a lot of myths surrounding the Holocaust survivors who came to America after the war. They worked hard, they learned English easily (so eager were they to move beyond what had happened in Europe and forget their pasts), they integrated well into society, and they didn’t talk about their experiences. Right? Not exactly, says Beth B. Cohen, author of Case Closed: Holocaust Survivors in Postwar America (Rutgers University Press, 2006). There are a lot of stories Americans like to tell themselves that gloss over the gritty truth, and this is one of them. I knew I had to learn the whole story, and onto my TBR this book went. Thanks, interlibrary loan! (Seriously, is it not the greatest?)

Think back to what you learned about those fortunate few who survived the massacre of European Jewry during the second World War. What did you learn about what happened to them? Some of them came to the US, some of them made their way to the new country of Israel, maybe a few stayed in Europe or went elsewhere. And then what? They worked hard to assimilate and make new lives for themselves, had families, started over. Sure, that was true for some of them, but not all- maybe not even the vast majority. The agencies in the US tasked with helping them rebuild their lives had an agenda, and too bad for anyone who didn’t fit into that agenda’s narrow confines. The displaced persons who came here had one year to become self-sufficient. Health problems, emotional problems, mental illness, language difficulties, having watched your entire family murdered and being the sole survivor after having ended your education at age 10, none of that mattered. One year, and then your case was closed.

Not surprisingly, a lot of people struggled with this. The trauma the survivors had suffered was summarily ignored; work would be what cured them (…sounds familiar, doesn’t it?). Orphaned teenagers were looked at not as victims of unspeakable horror who needed specialized assistance, but as self-absorbed narcissists who expected everyone to cater to them. The physical trauma people had suffered was dismissed as being psychosomatic and a sign that these were lazy, lazy people who didn’t want to work. How dare they expect any different treatment than other newcomers to America?

Ms. Cohen delves into the difficulties different groups faced: the religious Jews who struggled to find their place in a country that didn’t respect their beliefs and way of life; the unaccompanied minors who seemed to be almost universally looked upon by both agencies and their own extended families as massive burdens; the newly-formed families fracturing under the weight of all the burdens they carried. Occasionally an understanding caseworker would come along, but the majority of them seemed to resent their clients.

The style of this book is heavily academic; it’s not a long book, but it’s packed with information and a complex understanding of the survivors’ plights via how the agencies treated them and less via their personal and emotional struggles, and thus it’s a bit of a slow read. The horror is there, though it’s often couched between the lines, but Ms. Cohen doesn’t shy away from calling the agencies and caseworkers out as insensitive and uninformed. The United States has always been a hard country that seems to view the existence of a social safety net as a weakness and a moral failure, but this book really makes it seem as though this country delights in making every situation as difficult as possible for people who have already faced some of the worst situations imaginable. I’m guessing things have not gotten much better for new refugees from places like Syria, who have witnessed terrible nightmares of their own.

If you don’t mind the more academic style, Case Closed is a really eye-opening book. It highlights the insensitivity Holocaust survivors faced from basically every corner. They did make connections amongst themselves, amongst other survivors who understood and could relate to what they’d been through, but others didn’t seem to want to listen for a really long time after the war. It’s a heartbreaking book that tells a story that shouldn’t have happened this way, a story that disappointed me, but that didn’t really surprise.

Be kind to each other, people. It’s tough out there.