Description
Book SynopsisDr Kessler, a Jewish attorney from Lwow, Poland, gives an eye-witness account of the Holocaust through the events recorded in his diary between the years, 1942-1944. In vivid, raw, documentary style, he describes his experiences in the Lwow Ghetto, the Janowska Concentration Camp, and in an underground bunker where he and twenty-three other Jews were hidden by a courageous Polish farmer and his family. The book includes a chapter written by Kazimierz Kalwinski, who, as a teenager, was a care-taker for the hidden Jews on his family's farm. Edmund's daughter, Renata Kessler, coordinated the book and has written the epilogue about her search for the story, which has taken her to Israel, Poland, and Lviv, Ukraine. Renowned scholar Antony Polonsky contributes an insightful historical overview of the times in which the book takes place. This is a tremendous resource for historians, scholars, and all serious students of the Holocaust.
Trade Review"The Wartime Diary of Edmund Kessler" is a slim volume with considerable power. In prose and poetry, Kessler describes the conditions of Jewish life in the large but understudied ghetto of Lwow, Poland. His observations are keen, precise, his tone reserved and understated. He writes simply: "needless to say, conditions were difficult." Elsewhere he says: "I owe my survival to the fact that admirable people still in the world". -- Michael Berenbaum, Director, Sigi Ziering Institute, Professor of Jewish Studies, American Jewish University (Los Angeles) "The Wartime Diary of Edmund Kessler is not only a gripping account of the fate of Lwow Jewry during the war but also a unique mirror of the parallel perspectives of the rescued and their rescuers. This rich collection includes Kessler's wartime diary, his wartime poetry, and a 1998 memoir by Kazimierz Kalwinski, the son of the Polish couple who hid Kessler, his wife and 22 other Jews on their farm. Kessler was not what many regard as "a typical Polish Jew." He was an accomplished attorney, highly educated and spoke Polish as his first language. But in a way, Kessler was representative of a now destroyed subculture, the rich world of pre-war acculturated middle class Galician Jewry, a world which combined a deep love of Polish culture with a strong devotion to Jewish identity. Kessler was both an attorney and a poet, a shrewd observer for whom the horrors that he was experiencing only encouraged him to reaffirm his humanity through poetry of witness. It is especially important that this collection includes Kalwinski's memoirs. To hide Jews in German occupied Poland was to expose oneself and one's family to the risk of execution. It was not so easy to procure food and to secure a hiding place from the scrutiny of prying eyes at a time when Germans were conducting constant searches for food and for hidden arms. How does one do this for 24 people? This book is indeed an important addition to our knowledge of the Holocaust". -- Samuel Kassow, Charles H Northam professor of history, Trinity College (Hartford, CT), author of Who Will Write Our History?
Table of ContentsContinuation. Acknowledgements. Preface by David M. Bossman. Foreword by Leon Wells. PART I: Introduction by Antony Polonsky. The Kessler Family of Lwow. Autobiographical Statement. Life in America. Notes. PART II OUR PEOPLE By Edmund Kessler. Terror in Lvov. Life in the Camps. Reflections. Notes. PART III: SALVATION By Kazimierz Kalwinski. Our Bunker in Lwow. Lusia’s Letter by Lea Gera (Formerly Luisa Sicher, a survivor of the bunker). Part IV. Epilogue: The Search by Renata Renee Kessler. Afterword. PART V: Biographical Statements. Bibliography. Index Part VI: APPENDIX.
