Search results for ""library of the holocaust""

Livia Krancberg credits her sister Rose with carrying her through and out of the depths of the Holocaust. Would she have made it on her own? Who knows, even with Livia’s remarkable resilience which she still exhibits today in her nineties. It was Rose, with her desire to protect Livia and her instincts for survival that kept them, time and time again, from the many dangers which could have cost both of them their lives. From the moment they were on the transport to Auschwitz, and then saw their mother, along with Rose’s little son taken away and sent to the gas chambers, it was Rose who seem to anticipate what lay ahead. Maybe it was an extra morsel of food that could be obtained or an article of warm clothing. Rose always came through, even at great risk. Two Sisters is so much more than a story of survival during the Holocaust. It is the beautiful portrayal of a young girl—and later young woman—coming of age in rural Romania. Her academic achievements, schoolgirl crushes, and family life are all explored, revealed in detail for all of us. Carefully written and beautifully crafted, it serves as an extraordinary example of the power of the memoir in Holocaust understanding.

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The story of the transport, known as “Kasztner’s Train” that carried 1, 676 Jewish men women and children from Budapest and its environs out of immediate danger, and eventually to freedom is one of the most compelling and thought-provoking episodes of the Holocaust. The Jews of Hungary were the last remaining large group of Jews left in Europe. Although subjected to anti-Jewish decrees and acts of violence, they remained mostly intact. That changed in March 1944 when the Nazis, afraid that their Hungarian cronies were about to capitulate to the Allies, occupied the country. Before long, the fate of the Jews in Hungary became precarious, then deadly. They were deported at a frightening rate, most directly to Auschwitz where almost ninety percent of the over 425,000 Jews perished. Against this backdrop, Rudolf Kasztner, a part of a Jewish aid group tried r=to prevent Jews from being deported. He negotiated directly with the notorious Nazi, Adolf Eichmann to release Jews in exchange for payment. Kasztner wanted a much larger arrangement, but it never happened. To some, Kasztner was a literal life saver. To others, he was a collaborator, a traitor to his people.Among those on that train, along with his mother and uncle, was eight-year-old Imi Mandel. The story of how he came to be included in that uncertain journey that travelled from Budapest to the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, and after six months, on to freedom in Switzerland is but one part of the tale told by Mandel’s friend, Terry Horowitz. Along the way Mandel and his family crossed paths with some of the memorable people we think about when studying the Holocaust: names like Hannah Szenes, Anne Frank and Raoul Wallenberg. Mandel’s father, Lajos was a prominent cantor in Budapest and an important figure in Jewish life there. But he was forced laborer hundreds of miles away and didn’t even know his wife and child had left Budapest. Eventually the family was reunited, first in Israel and later in the United States. Imi, now known as Manny, grew to adulthood, and has had a successful and rewarding life. He now regularly speaks about the Holocaust in front of various groups. The story of Manny and the entire Mandel family offers us a rich detail of the Jewish world before and during the war, along with its aftermath and how they overcame many tragedies and obstacles. Finally, their story becomes a chronicle of a quintessential American life.

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