What We Are Reading: Memoirs

We have all read them: those haunting memoirs of survivors. What do you see as the value in Holocaust memoirs? Their documentary power, their emotional impact, the importance of allowing victims a voice, or something else? Which memoirs do you think are the most important? Which have stayed with you longest? What have you learned from them?

Please share your thoughts and reviews of Holocaust memoirs here.

Max Eisen is a survivor of Auschwitz and he wrote about his experiences in his memoir By Chance Alone. His book was very popular in Canada and was one of the books nominated for "Canada Reads"- a Canadian Broadcasting radio event.Each spring five books are chosen by five "celebrities" and there is a week of debate as each presenter defends their chosen book. Max Eisen's book won. He was just honoured by the Governor-General of Canada as one of the people chosen to received the " Order of Canada. The book was well written and worth reading if you are looking for Holocaust related memoirs.

"What do you see as the value in Holocaust memoirs? Their documentary power, their emotional impact, the importance of allowing victims a voice . . . "

All of these factors. It is so easy to gloss over the true horror on the Holocaust in our minds. It is very important to have these testimonies of personal experiences and, most importantly to me, endless details of the fear and misery that took place day after day after day for years.

>2 torontoc: Thanks, Cyrel, I added it to my wish list.

>3 rocketjk: True. They help remind me that everyone's experience was unique and that each one of those six million was a person with a family, life, thoughts. It also hammers into me the depths that people can sink to in their desire to exert power over others. My mind finds it hard to grasp that people could do these things to one another. It reminds me not to be complacent.

>4 labfs39: - I posted in the other thread in this group (books for children) the other day, about a book that really speaks to your comment here. It's not a memoir, per se, but a story written for kids about a young girl, Hana Brady, who perished at Auschwitz. It was an educator in Japan, of all places, who discovered her story when teaching young Japanese students about the Holocaust. She really did her homework and what she discovered was incredible. The book is called Hana's Suitcase and started as a radio documentary, then became the book. It went on to become a very amazing stage play for kids and I found out, also a film, which I haven't seen.

The book truly makes Hana's story very real for these kids and for everyone who reads it.

>5 jessibud2: I saw your post and noted it, Shelley. It's interesting, some LTers had marked Hana's Suitcase as fiction, others as a biography, and some split the difference with historical fiction. According to the Library of Congress it is a biography. Which leads me to wonder if I should expand the Memoir thread to include biographies, or if we should put biographies in nonfiction? I think the latter, but what do you all think?

Edited to add, I'm going to watch the documentaries about Hana's Suitcase that you link to in you post on the juvenile lit thread, maybe today.

Also, just to clarify, I think Hana's Suitcase belongs where you put it on juv lit, but it made me think about biographies and what we should do with adult ones.

It is definitely NOT fiction at all. And since it was written for children, I agree that it belongs there. It's a great way for kids to relate and learn about what happened on a level that is suitable for their stage of development. I would agree, though, that biographies and memoirs could go together or they could all go into non-fiction and just state there if the NF is a bio or memoir. It really fits in both those categories, NF and bio. Splitting them into too many categories may cause some people to miss posts if they aren't looking at all the threads.

Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter by Kazik (Simha Rotem) (1994)
Read in 2016

Kazik gave testimony at the end of Claude Lanzmann's 1985 documentary, Shoah and it was like all testimony, very sad. He was often asked when he came to Israel after the war, how did you survive?, a question which made him feel very guilty for the act of surviving, to the point that he stopped talking about the Holocaust. He was pushed to write his memoir by one of the other survivors, one of the leaders of the ZOB (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa/Jewish Fighting Organization) who felt that documentation of their actions was important.
It's very immediate, in the introduction Rotem makes it clear that he's not a writer, and he related his memoir by dictation, he also says there are incidents he refused to relate, preferring not to bring them to the surface of his own memory. Rotem was very active in helping many Jews in hiding to survive, he fought in the Warsaw Ghetto and escaped through the sewers, and returned trying to rescue more fighters only being partially successful. Later he took part in the fighting in the Warsaw Uprising.
The memoir was the basis for a 1990s miniseries, Uprising.

I'm still haunted several years later by Rotem's testimony in Shoah. I think it was one of the first times he allowed himself to remember.

The Vale of Tears by Rabbi Pinchas Hirschprung .This memoir was written in Yiddish in 1944. It was translated by Vivian Felsen and published by the Azrieli Foundation in 2016. Rabbi Hirschprung describes his life as he tries to escape from Dukla in Eastern Poland in 1939. The memoir covers 1939-1941. The Rabbi travels from Poland to Lithuania, Kobe , Japan and does end up in Montreal in 1941. It is a remarkable story. The Rabbi eventually becomes the Chief Rabbi of Montreal.
I want to mention the publishers of this book- the Azrieli Foundation- it has published a series of Holocaust survivor memoirs. I have read a number of them.

Recently read this very moving account, a childhood recollection by Uri Shulevitz

Chance: Escape from the Holocaust: Memories of a Refugee Childhood
Winner of several awards.

>10 nrmay: I ordered a copy of that yesterday as my library doesn't have it and I have fond recollections of reading his story in picturebook format some years ago.

Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death: Reflections on Memory and Imagination by Otto Dov Kulka (2013)
nonfiction / read in 2014
This slim little book is historian Kulka's memoir or rather fragments of his recollections of his time in Auschwitz. I can't even begin to describe the writing except to say that I'm glad that the book exists as it is so different from other Holocaust writing. Kulka was only about 9 or so years old and for a time was with his mother in a special family camp that was set up for Czech Jews as a front for possible visits by the Red Cross. The visits never eventuated as the Red Cross was appeased by what they saw on a visit to Theresienstadt. These Czech Jews were all killed (without selection to begin with) every six months and a new group would arrive to take their place. Kulka survived as he was in hospital through two of these eliminations. The book was awarded the 2014 JQ Wingate Prize.

For another book that includes time in the "family camp" at Auschwitz (although it's a small part of the book), see



A delayed life : the true story of the librarian of Auschwitz by Dita Kraus

I first learned about Dita Kraus when I read a review on LibraryThing of The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe. It is a fictionalized account of her life during the Holocaust. The review led to an interesting conversation about ″based on the true story″ literature, the sensationalizing of the Holocaust, and the merits of fictional Holocaust literature. I decided to skip the novel and chose to read her memoir instead.

A Delayed Life is not only, or even primarily, a Holocaust story. The first quarter details her childhood in Prague, from her earliest memories through her thirteenth birthday. The second quarter covers the war years, 1942-45. The last half describes life in Prague after the war, her immigration to Israel, life on a kibbutz, her marriage, and teaching career. Taken in it′s entirety, it is a rich history of both a life and a time period.

Dita Polach was born in 1929, the only child of a middle class secular Jewish family. Her homey descriptions of her childhood in Prague—her relationship with her grandmother, being a picky eater, having her tonsils out, skating dresses, and trips to the countryside—were a delight to read. Little mention is made of political matters, because as a child, she was unaware of them. When she was thirteen, however, the war came crashing down around her, when she and her parents were deported to Terezín. She was thirteen years old.

One of the unique things about Dita is that she is one of the few survivors among the child artists at Terezín. Her drawings are on display in several exhibits around the world. Another is that although she was separated from her parents in Terezín, she was reunited with them in the BIIb or the Terezín
family camp at Auschwitz. Very few families were kept together at Auschwitz, but around 17,500 people from Terezín were transferred there. Unfortunately, only 1,294 survived. Dita and her mother were two of them. They were selected by Mengele for transport to Germany as slave labor and thus they avoided the crematorium. In the spring of 1945, as the front grew closer, the women were transported to Bergen-Belsen where they spent several harrowing and desperate months prior to liberation.

After the war, sixteen-year-old Dita returned to Prague and eventually decided to emigrate to Israel. This was another fascinating part of the book. She describes the process that the now communist Czech government required in order to emigrate: the documents needed, what you could and could not bring, how they traveled. All to end up inside a barbed-wire fence in Israel for months until they were found a place on a kibbutz. Her descriptions of life on the kibbutz were interesting, because although she wanted to succeed there, she was not a Zionist, and saw things without the passion of an idealist. Interestingly, one of her longest jobs there was as a cobbler.

The last part of the book deals with her teaching career, her husband, and children, bringing the reader to the present, 2018. Unfortunately in January of 2021, Dita contracted Covid at the age of 91 and was hospitalized for several weeks. She appears to have recovered. You can listen to an interview with her and see some of her artwork at her website: www.ditakraus.com.

I highly recommend this well-written and readable memoir.

>13 labfs39: - Oh, that does sound like a good one!

I finished reading a memoir today that I found very effecting.



I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust by Livia Bitton-Jackson
Published 1997, 224 p.

The author, née Elli Friedmann, was born in what is now Slovakia, but at the time was part of Hungary. At the age of thirteen, she, her mother, and older brother were deported to Auschwitz. Her father had been taken to a Hungarian labor camp. She and her mother are taken to Camp C, a half-built pen with no water. Within a couple of weeks, they are transferred to Camp Plaszow to work flattening hills by hand. Back to Auschwitz, then forced labor in Germany, prison camp, cattle cars to nowhere. It's a horrifying story, told very matter-of-factly. Unusual in that Elli was so young and that she survived particularly harsh treatment.

This book was written for young adults; the author has also written an adult memoir called Elli: Coming of Age in the Holocaust.

I wasn't sure where to add the book---it's actually an interview with doctor Marek Edelman by Hanna Krall: Shielding the flame


I've read it a couple of years ago, when we were talking about the war at school. I remember its persussive images of the Warsaw Ghetto, the rawness of everything that doctor Edelman talked about.

There is a good review on LT book's page, talking about things I didn't know about, e.g. how the interview was the first one to give some account of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. It makes me think that doctor Edelman was one of the many people who couldn't talk about various things witnessed during the war, how it must have been really difficult to go through it all over and over again, but only in his head (just like Miron Białoszewski and his accounts from the 1944 Warsaw Uprising...), or, on the contrary, not to think about it for a long time (is it even possible?).

>16 zuzaer: Wow. After reading the review, this book went straight to my wish list. Amazon marketplace is selling it for $155, but I think it's available through the Internet Archive.

I picked up 3 books the other day at Value Village (a resale shop), books from the Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs. From the back: "The Azrieli Series was established to preserve and share the written memoirs of those who survived the twentieth-century Nazi genocide of the Jews of Europe and who later made their way to Canada."

I have read one from this series before, and now have 3 more. I don't know how many there are in the series but they are, as one might expect, compelling.

From the Written in Stone thread for January:
Holocaust survivor Mel Mermelstein died January 28 at the age of 95. His memoir was called By Bread Alone: The Story of A-4685.

I have not read this memoir, but given thought that it might be of interest.

>17 labfs39: I don't get Amazon... Anyway, it's a quick read, the book has maybe a hundred pages? I hope you can find it! Also, it was translated two times, under different titles, so you can look for the second one. I'll copy what I shared in the Maus thread.
Hanna Krall, "Zdążyć przed Panem Bogiem"; twice translated into English: "Shielding the Flame", New York:, H. Holt 1986; "To steal a march on God", Amsterdam: Harwood Acad., 1996

Okay so another one that I've just remembered (also not sure where to put it in terms of the category) is the Ringelblum Archive. You can find the adequate description on the Internet, I know only vaguely---it was an archive made in the Warsaw (?) Ghetto, that by some miracle survived everything. I know only of the complete version published in Poland a few years ago, followed by a semi-popular edition in the well-known series "Biblioteka Narodowa". Unfortunately, I don't know whether it's been translated, I'll try to find out.
---
A short story of the Ringelblum Archive
Link to the whole Ringelblum Archive in English, courtesy of Jewish Historical Institute---Central Judaic Library

>20 zuzaer: Hmm, from what I can tell, To Steal a March on God is a play based on the book.

>21 zuzaer: I recently watched the documentary Who Will Write Our History (see the film thread) and thought it was fascinating. I have Ringelblum's Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto on my TBR shelves.

>22 labfs39: I accepted the first touchstone that LT provided, thank you for pointing that out.

ETA: it looks like my touchstone was correct. "To steal a march on God" was first published as an interview, then as a book. It looks like the play was then based on the book version (which is in a dialogue/interview form).

I've just finished Inheriting Anne Frank by Jaqueline van Maarsen which was an interesting read at times. She was a friend of Anne, probably her best friend, and was referred to as Jopie in Frank's diary. The book covers the post war years and focuses on van Maarsen's at first preference to be a background figure while Otto Frank was alive. Later she steps forward, even writes a book, when she sees that Otto Frank's second wife Fritzi's daughter, Eva Schloss has fabricated stories of her friendship with Anne when van Maarsen remembers very little interaction between Anne and Eva.
Eva talks of a friendship between Anne's older sister, Margot, and her brother, based on the fact they were both at the same Lyceum. Yet when van Maarsen talks with Margot's friends, she establishes that none of them knew of Heinz's existence.
The Anne Frank Foundation was too reliant by then on Fritzi Frank and her daughter Eva Schloss and refused to investigate van Maarsen's claims.
That Ann Frank became an industry and her story overshadowed that of many other survivor stories, causing some resentment is well known.
The book also covers other parts of van Maarsen's life including her time as an internationally esteemed bookbinder. Her earlier memoir was a response to Eva Schloss's 1988 Eva's Story.

eta: van Maarsen also states that Alison Gold plagiarised some parts of her as yet untranslated (to English) first memoir when writing Memories of Anne Frank: Reflections of a Childhood Friend which is based on Hannah Elizabeth Pick-Goslar's story. Gold 'romanticised' her story.

Just read about this newly published oral history/memoir that a young English man (18 years old) did with his great grandmother, an Auschwitz survivor, during lockdown. Please note the reference to fact checking in the article:

Dov Forman Wants You to Know His Great-Grandmother’s Holocaust Story
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/26/books/review/lilys-promise-dov-forman-lily-eb...

I thought folks here would be interested.

I just read about a book on another LTer's thread and though it looks intense, it also looks like a worthy read. Check out the comments on the review page:

Parallel Journeys

>25 rocketjk: - I also have this one on hold at the library.

One Hundred Saturdays Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World by Michael Frank The author sat down with Stella Levi in New York when she was in her 90's. The stories that she told described her life in the Jewish section or Juderia on the island of Rhodes. Her community had been in Rhodes for hundreds of years. Stella Levi describes her life on the island as the Italians and later the Germans take charge. The descriptions show a world and customs that disappeared when all members of the Jewish community were taken to Auschwitz. Although Stella describes the hardships that she and her sister and friends endured, perhaps the lasting impressions that I had were of the life that she led when she was young. This memoir/history shows the customs of a long lost Sephardi community.

>27 torontoc: Wow! I have to get that.

>27 torontoc: I have that out from the library at present.

Also out from the library, The Burned Letter: A New Zealander’s Holocaust Mystery: a memoir by Helene Ritchie. Ritchie's mother burned the letter describing the fates of her family members that she receives in 1945 as she feels survivor guilt and doesn't want to know anything more. 70 years later as a 90 year old and dying she confesses to her daughter, Helene, that she regrets burning the letter. This is a memoir of Ritchie's endeavours to uncover the fate of her mother's family.

I recently finished Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood by Binjamin Wilkomirski. Wilkomirski was a young child during the war and this means his story is made up of fragments of memories that he's been able to link somewhat together. These are not happy memories and yet it is clear that many others risked their lives to save the young Jewish children who lived in and out of the camps.
Wilomirski was eventually smuggled into Switzerland from a Krakow orphanage, probably near the end or after the war.

I just finished My Brother's Voice: How a Young Hungarian Boy Survived the Holocaust. The author was only thirteen when he was deported to Auschwitz and then to Mühldorf. Although I visited Dachau long ago, I don't know much about the satellite camps such as Mühldorf where the prisoners were forced to build a huge cement bunker that was intended to be a Messerschmidt factory.

Question: will these threads automatically be carried over to 2024 or does each one have to be restarted? I would hate to lose these, as we go through this new year.

>32 jessibud2: This group just keeps going, like the Reading Globally group, no need to start new threads.

Have just read Cold Crematorium: Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz by József Debreczeni, first published in 1950 but the English translation only came out this year.

Last year I read I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing up in the Holocaust by Livia Bitton-Jackson.

>34 avatiakh: What did you think of I Have Lived? I have been meaning to follow up with her memoir for adults, Elli: Coming of Age in the Holocaust.

Compelling. She was advised to lie about her age during selection so was lucky. In Cold Crematorium those men selected to go to the camp are given the option to walk 14km or hop in the trucks, those that went in the trucks never arrived to the camp. I'm constantly humbled by these stories of survival.
I should read her adult one as well.

I recently read Lily's Promise, a memoir co-written by Lily Ebert when she was 100 years old (she is still alive) and her great grandson Dov Forman. It was a fascinating story of her early years, the time spent in Auschwitz, and her later years. Dov writes of his research and how the internet helped them both fill in a lot of blanks of what happened to some of the people who helped liberate her. Lily has a strong sense of positivity and determination and it radiates to this day.