From Publishers Weekly
Hours before she was deported to the concentration camp where she was murdered, the author's mother begged him to survive "to tell the world what the Nazis did to us." With his simple, affecting memoir, the former Newsweek photographer who grew up in Radom, Poland, summons up faces from the grave. When impoverished peasants steal his pious grandmother's table in those innocent days before the war, she gifts the apprehended thieves with food--and the table; years later, the Nazis shoot and kill her as she recovers from a stroke in the ghetto hospital. Sexually assaulted, the milk woman's teenage daughter, Masha, becomes a deaf-mute, and a physician, a rabbi and a witch doctor fail to cure her; forced to clean the ghetto of the dead after a deportation, Gotfryd discovers Masha's corpse in the rubble. Those who perish also include Gotfryd's father, who tries to pass a forbidden egg to his son in a labor camp; the father gets a beating and the egg falls wasted to the ground; a beautiful gentile activist in the Polish underground who captures Gotfryd's heart as she endangers his life; and his brother's friend Leon, who is crushed when he learns that his favorite cousin is a prostitute for SS guards and kapos. A meaningful, earnest addition to Holocaust literature. Portions appeared previously in Midstream . Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
YA-- This remarkable collection of true stories gathered from the anguished memory of the author's years as a Jewish youth in wartime Poland offers a painful array of memorials. Gotfryd's extraordinary experiences span a spectrum of individuals from Resistance fighters and SS sympathizers to the inevitable children and families to whom he dedicates his book. This collection is noteworthy for its clear, uncluttered writing style that allows the poignancy of the individuals' own stories to assault readers page after page.Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Gotfryd, a former Newsweek photographer, has written a series of poignant tales that capture in vivid detail his experiences before and during the Holocaust in Poland. In moving vignettes he brings his family and neighbors to life, depicting the simplest of daily routines amidst the trauma of the period. Each tale is emotionally charged; particularly poignant is "On Guilt," which deals with his family's experiences while trapped in the ghetto without his mother. This reviewer could only read one or two stories at a sitting, pausing to allow the pain of the moment to subside. The impact of the collection as a whole is considerable. The writing is simple and beautiful. Highly recommended for general as well as Holocaust collec tions.- Sheila R. Herstein, City Coll. Lib., CUNYCopyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Review
"[A] fine collection of 30 true stories, some nostalgic, others heartbreaking, all of them moving."-- Jewish Book World


Review
"Poignant and painful reading... so immediate that it is as if it... is happening today."--Ruth Prawer Jhabvala


Book Description
This collection of extraordinary true stories--including nine stories new to this expanded edition-- illuminates the experiences of a young Polish boy before World War II, through the gathering storm of Nazism, into the death camps, to poignant reunions many years later. Here we watch young Bernard break curfew to secure a rare chicken for the High Holidays--only to see it given to the Christian janitor because it is not kosher; we meet Alexandra, a Polish resistance fighter who enlists the teenaged Bernard in the cause but who perishes while he survives; and we share Bernard's fear as he spends one very uncomfortable night--hours after his liberation--in the seemingly sympathetic home of the parents of a young SS officer.


About the Author
Bernard Gotfryd was born in Radom, Poland. During World War II he was involved with the Polish underground until being imprisoned by the Nazis. He spent time in six concentration camps before his liberation from Gusen II in May of 1945. Two years later Gotfryd emigrated to the United States, where he served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps before joining the staff of Newsweek in 1957. He was moved to begin recording his Holocaust memories when he photographed the Pope's visit to Poland in 1983--Gotfryd's first visit to Poland in forty years. Currently he divides his time between writing and photography at his home in Forest Hills, New York.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This collection of extraordinary true stories--including nine stories new to this expanded edition-- illuminates the experiences of a young Polish boy before World War II, through the gathering storm of Nazism, into the death camps, to poignant reunions many years later. Here we watch young Bernard break curfew to secure a rare chicken for the High Holidays--only to see it given to the Christian janitor because it is not kosher; we meet Alexandra, a Polish resistance fighter who enlists the teenaged Bernard in the cause but who perishes while he survives; and we share Bernard's fear as he spends one very uncomfortable night--hours after his liberation--in the seemingly sympathetic home of the parents of a young SS officer.

SYNOPSIS

Gotfryd was born in Radom, Poland and during WWII was involved with the Polish underground until his imprisonment by the Nazis. He spent time in six concentration camps before his liberation from Gusen II in May, 1945, and two years later emigrated to the US where he served in the US Army Signal Corps before working for Newsweek in 1957. These 30 short "stories" recount the author's first-hand experiences or are based on stories the author heard told as true. One example involves the hanging of an older Jewish man in which a young Jewish boy is ordered to kick away the stool. When the boy refuses, a Nazi holds a gun to his head. Threats do no good and so the Nazi kicks away the stool himself, and spares the boy, the storyteller assumes, because of the boy's courage. The first edition of these stories won the 1991 PEN/Martha Albrand Special Citation for Nonfiction. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

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