Lorri M. Friday News 5/17/13

I reviewed the memoir, Country of Ash: A Jewish Doctor in Poland 1939-1945.

I wrote about Cancer in Varied Forms, this week.

I finished reading The Golem and the Jinni, and I absolutely enjoyed it, although it is not my normal genre of reading.

Hannah’s Nook has a delicious sounding Fruity Red Lentil Curry recipe posted.

Leora’s Sketching Out blog has a wonderful colored-pencil drawing: Fishing at the Raritan River: Man and Boy. What are your thoughts on it?

Visit Shiloh Musings and read her Jewish Blog Roundup which has several links to browse.

Zivah writes on Naso – raising us up.

Yidstock 2013 – The Festival of New Yiddish Music

Visit Women of the Wall to see their latest update.

The Jewish Journal has a post about the new documentary: State 194: A Documentary About Palestine.

Jewish Waltz With Planet Earth Retreat, such an interesting concept.

Shabbat Shalom!

Lorri M. Book Review: Country of Ash: A Jewish Doctor in Poland 1939-1945

Country of Ash: A Jewish Doctor in Poland 1939-1945, by Edward Reicher, is a compelling memoir, and one that speaks forthrightly about the Holocaust and how it affected Reicher and his family.

The horrific incidents and events that took place between 1939-1945 are depicted with candor, leaving no detail undisclosed. From the Lodz ghetto to the Warsaw ghetto and all locations in between, Reicher writes about the horrors of the Jewish ghetto life, the inhumanities that the Jewish population faced and had to deal with, and the agonizing moments of family separation.

At one point he had to make a choice between his severely ill father in his house, and his wife and child back home. He chose to stay with his father, because he felt he would not be able to go on without him. He felt that his family would be able to survive, and prayed he made the right decision.

Being a doctor who specialized in skin disorders, he was forced to treat the Germans. which he did. He was not given special privilege for his efforts. Reicher literally saved Germans from the agony of skin diseases, including syphilis and gonorrhea. He did so out of duty as a doctor. He also treated other Jews who ended up turning on him, and did nothing to help him. He eventually was able to hide on the Aryan side of Warsaw, disguised and running from place to place.

Reicher witnessed a lot of abusive actions and witnessed Jews being murdered. He, himself, suffered abuse, but he writes about that in a minor fashion compared to what other Jews endured. He had involvement with Chaim Rumkowski, a man that he described as a madman, and a self-appointed “King of the Jews”. He courageously testified against Hermann Hofle, and how Hofle helped send hundreds of thousands of Jews to their deaths in Poland.

Reicher survived the Holocaust, along with his wife and daughter. His daughter, Elisabeth Bizouard-Reicher translated her father’s book to French from Polish, and now, it has been translated to English by Magda Bogin.

Country of Ash: A Jewish Doctor in Poland 1939-1945 is not only a tribute to the strength, determination, and fortitude, but a tribute to all of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. It is a tribute to those who were not Jewish, yet did strive to offer a place to hide and offer food to Reicher and/or his family. It is a memoir that honors Reicher’s daughter, Elisabeth Bizouard-Reicher’s determination to see her father’s memoir in print for all the world to read the horrors and inhumanities suffered by the Polish Jews.

Country of Ash is intense, graphic with its depictions, and a brilliantly written account of one man’s environment and interactions during the Holocaust. It is written without flourish or exaggeration, but written as Edward Reicher witnessed events, and as he found himself involved in the many crossroads of decision and action.

It is not a book I will soon forget due to the extensiveness and intensity of the content, which makes it a difficult read. But, read, I had to, because I wanted to know the truth of his story. It is not a book I will soon forget.
May 16, 2013 – 7 Sivan, 5773

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Lorri M. Review: Where She Came From

Where She Came From: A Daughter’s Search for Her Mother’s History, by Helen Epstein is an extremely compelling memoir. We journey with Helen Epstein as she searches for her familial past, and searches for answers regarding her family members who were murdered during the Holocaust.

The book is difficult to put down, once you start to read it. I was engrossed in this book from the first page…although it was a slow read for me, because I wanted to grasp the intensity of the generational saga, and grasp the historical facts, correctly.

Epstein has more than proved herself as a writer in this dramatic memoir of family generations, identity, and history. We journey with her through time, through the positive and negative aspects, through the good and not so good, through the hardships and adversity. The reader is given remnants of life in a familial tapestry, through history, through the horrors of war, and how it affects all the generations, from past to present, and also how it can and will affect future generations.

From assimilating into society and racial and religious identity, to how one views themselves and what they identify with, Where She Came From is written with insight, often brutal in Epstein’s vivid descriptions. She writes with love, with yearning and the emotions of loss, she writes with clarity. Where She Came From is an extremely inspiring book.

How does one start over after enduring such atrocities and horrors? Is there laughter in your life, once again? How does the past affect the present? Does God exist? These are just a few of the questions Where She Came From leaves the reader to ponder, and Epstein pondered those issues and questions, and many more. She manages to weave a tapestry of her family, each moment in time adds to the fabric of her own identity, as she comes closer to some of her ancestral answers. We laugh with her, and cry with her, and we are inspired by Where She Came From.

Successive generations live with the past every day of their lives…it seems inevitable, and Epstein reinforces that theory through her writing. Epstein’s writing draws us in, and her memoir is intriguing, insightful and concise, but mainly it is extremely inspiring. In my opinion it is a must read for everyone, as its educational value is priceless.

Where She Came From is both compelling as a memoir and as a historical book. It is an incredible resource for schools, colleges, universities, and anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of life before, during and after the Holocaust.

I applaud Helen Epstein for such an exceptional read!

All rights reserved © Copyright 2007 – 2013 – All Rights Reserved – No permission is given or allowed to reuse my photography, book reviews, writings, or my poetry in any form/format without my express written consent/permissio

Lorri M. Review: I Kiss Your Hands Many Times

I Kiss Your Hands Many Times: Hearts, Souls and War in Hungary is a non-fictional account of a Hungarian family, spanning prewar and post World War II. It is the story of Marianne Szegedy-Maszák’s parents and other family, members, and how they went from riches to basic poverty during the most horrific of times.

Szegedy-Maszak’s father was a well off man, who was arrested and sent to Dachau. Her mother was the granddaughter of a Jewish aristocrat, a man who owned several factories. Those very factories were used as collateral in order for her mother and family members to escape death and enable them to emigrate to Portugal.

Szegedy-Maszák details with vivid word imagery and intense prose the extremes to which the Nazis went to in order to overtake Hungary.

Initially, there seemed to be a sense of denial that events were actually happening within their environment, and the family stayed, rather than emigrate. Whether through ignorance or denial regarding the entirety of the situation, the family felt they were being noble in their choice. Many individuals felt the same way during World War II, and Szegedy-Maszák’s family was not the only one with those ideals and opinions. This decision proved to be one that contributed to their eventual and negative fate.

There is a lot of compelling historical information within the pages. The data is not only relevant to the time period, the war, and the events that occurred, but data that is extremely important documentation in its own right regarding circumstances, events and social mores and stigmas prewar and postwar.

Some of the book’s details come from a series of letters written between both Szegedy-Maszak’s parents. Those letters describe the defining moments of their experiences during the Holocaust. They also describe the deep love that her parents had for each other, even during long periods of separation. Throughout all of the atrocities, their love survived, and they were eventually married in Budapest, after liberation.

I Kiss Your Hands Many Times: Hearts, Souls and War in Hungary brings the reader an intense look at the Hungarian situation during the war, and how it affected Marianne Szegedy-Maszak’s family, and their future together. It is an inspiring love story and one that depicts the face of survival under extreme odds.

Lorri M. Review – Provenance

Provenance, by Ronald Florence, is an interesting look into two books that affect the lives of men and women through the centuries. Fiction is infused with history within the pages of Provenance, which contains the story of two factual books.

From the Aleppo Codex, or Aleppo Crown (medieval Hebrew Bible) to a woman’s book of prayer, the characters portrayed within the pages exhibit realized individuals, each with their own story to tell, and each with their own religious concept, within the realm of their environment.

Provenance reads like a story of intrigue, a detective story and a story of greed and goodness. The individuals involved in the holding of the Crown of Aleppo transfer it thousands of miles, from Egypt to Provence, Aleppo to Israel to Brooklyn, in a tapestry of life. Florence depicts life, customs, daily dealings, and history in depth.

Background details of life are portrayed with lovely prose and with clarity, within the centuries. The novel contains historical data and testaments that contribute to a mysterious concept of lives lived, and lives struggling to keep hold on the Crown.

The pages are infused with Jewish history, rituals and with a love story, as well. At times the prose is mystical and surreal sounding. That does not detract from the story line.

I felt the fact that the women’s book of prayer being interwoven within the pages diminished the strength of the story line of the Crown of Aleppo. I would much rather have it been a story written strictly for the Crown of Aleppo, alone. I think it could have stood on its own.

I did enjoy reading Provenance, though, and thought it was an intriguing story.

Sunday Scenes April 14, 2013 – Yom HaZikaron

Yom HaZikaron begins tonight (April 14, 2013) at sundown. It is a memorial day that commemorates the individuals who lost their lives fighting for Israel, and a day of reflection, memory and loss.

The Silver Platter, by Natan Altermann

…And the land will grow still
Crimson skies dimming, misting
Slowly paling again
Over smoking frontiers

As the nation stands up
Torn at heart but existing
To receive its first wonder
In two thousand years

As the moment draws near
It will rise, darkness facing
Stand straight in the moonlight
In terror and joy

…When across from it step out
Towards it slowly pacing
In plain sight of all
A young girl and a boy

Dressed in battle gear, dirty
Shoes heavy with grime
On the path they will climb up
While their lips remain sealed

To change garb, to wipe brow
They have not yet found time
Still bone weary from days
And from nights in the field

Full of endless fatigue
And all drained of emotion
Yet the dew of their youth
Is still seen on their head

Thus like statues they stand
Stiff and still with no motion
And no sign that will show
If they live or are dead

Then a nation in tears
And amazed at this matter
Will ask: who are you?
And the two will then say

With soft voice: We–
Are the silver platter
On which the Jews’ state
Was presented today

Then they fall back in darkness
As the dazed nation looks
And the rest can be found
In the history books.
~~~
April 14, 2013 – 4 Iyyar, 5773

All rights reserved © Copyright 2007 – All Rights Reserved – No permission is given or allowed to reuse my photography, book reviews, writings, or my poetry in any form/format without my express written consent/permission.