Description
Book SynopsisThe impact of World War II and the Holocaust on a multiethnic community in Eastern Poland, seen through the eyes of its Polish, Jewish, and Ukrainian inhabitants.
Trade ReviewRedlich (Ben-Gurion Univ.) wears several hats: he is a Holocaust survivor, a historian, and a sentimental returnee to his childhood hometown, Brzezany. He endeavors to meld a strand of idyllic memory of life in a multicultural town where Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians lived side by side with the nightmare that the Germans brought to his community. Since the author was only five years old when WW II began, he relied mostly on the historian in his persona to reconstruct the story of his and the town's travails. The narrative is basically chronological, beginning with the Soviet occupation of Brzezany and ending with the Red Army's return in 1944. The book's core is about the Holocaust, how the town's Jews were killed, and how part of Redlich's family managed to survive with the help of local Ukrainians. Each chapter is introduced, before the historian takes over, by the child's memories in italics. Redlich tells his tale without bitterness or stereotyping any of the people with whom he grew up. Well footnoted, the book is recommended for all college and public libraries.
-- A. Ezergailis * Ithaca College , 2002dec CHOICE. *
Table of ContentsPreliminary Table of Contents:
Preface and Acknowledgments
A Note on Transliteration
Maps
ONE: My Return
TWO: Close and Distant Neighbors
THREE: The Good Years, 1919–1939
FOUR: The Soviet Interlude, 1939–1941
FIVE: The German Occupation, 1941–1944
SIX: The Aftermath, 1944–1945
SEVEN: Their Return
Concluding Remarks
Interviews
Notes
Abbreviations of Names of Archives
Bibliography and Abbreviations
Index
