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At Memory's Edge: After-Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture

At Memory's Edge: After-Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture

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How should Germany commemorate the mass murder of Jews once committed in its name? In 1997, James E. Young was invited to join a German commission appointed to find an appropriate design for a national memorial in Berlin to the European Jews killed in World War II. As the only foreigner and only Jew on the panel, Young gained a unique perspective on Germany's fraught efforts to memorialize the Holocaust. In this book, he tells for the first time the inside story of Germany's national Holocaust memorial and his own role in it.

In exploring Germany's memorial crisis, Young also asks the more general question of how a generation of contemporary artists can remember an event like the Holocaust, which it never knew directly. Young examines the works of a number of vanguard artists in America and Europe--including Art Spiegelman, Shimon Attie, David Levinthal, and Rachel Whiteread--all born after the Holocaust but indelibly shaped by its memory as passed down through memoirs, film, photographs, and museums. In the context of the moral and aesthetic questions raised by these avant-garde projects, Young offers fascinating insights into the controversy surrounding Berlin's newly opened Jewish museum, designed by Daniel Libeskind, as well as Germany's soon-to-be-built national Holocaust memorial, designed by Peter Eisenman.

Illustrated with striking images in color and black-and-white, At Memory's Edge is the first book in any language to chronicle these projects and to show how we remember the Holocaust in the after-images of its history.

Book of Lost Names

Book of Lost Names

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"A fascinating, heartrending page-turner that, like the real-life forgers who inspired the novel, should never be forgotten." --Kristina McMorris, New York Times bestselling author of Sold on a Monday

Inspired by an astonishing true story from World War II, a young woman with a talent for forgery helps hundreds of Jewish children flee the Nazis in this "sweeping and magnificent" (Fiona Davis, bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue) historical novel from the #1 international bestselling author of The Winemaker's Wife.

Eva Traube Abrams, a semi-retired librarian in Florida, is shelving books when her eyes lock on a photograph in the New York Times. She freezes; it's an image of a book she hasn't seen in more than sixty years--a book she recognizes as The Book of Lost Names.

The accompanying article discusses the looting of libraries by the Nazis across Europe during World War II--an experience Eva remembers well--and the search to reunite people with the texts taken from them so long ago. The book in the photograph, an eighteenth-century religious text thought to have been taken from France in the waning days of the war, is one of the most fascinating cases. Now housed in Berlin's Zentral- und Landesbibliothek library, it appears to contain some sort of code, but researchers don't know where it came from--or what the code means. Only Eva holds the answer, but does she have the strength to revisit old memories?

As a graduate student in 1942, Eva was forced to flee Paris and find refuge in a small mountain town in the Free Zone, where she began forging identity documents for Jewish children fleeing to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named Rémy, Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember who they really are. The records they keep in The Book of Lost Names will become even more vital when the resistance cell they work for is betrayed and Rémy disappears.

An engaging and evocative novel reminiscent of The Lost Girls of Paris and The Alice Network, The Book of Lost Names is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of bravery and love in the face of evil.

But You Did Not Come Back-PPK

But You Did Not Come Back-PPK

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"You might come back, because you're young, but I will not come back."--Marceline Loridan-Ivens' father, speaking to her at the Drancy internment camp, April 1944

A runaway international bestseller, But You Did Not Come Back garnered rave reviews and features on hardcover publication, including a New York Times profile on the author. Hailed as an important new addition to the library of books dealing with the Holocaust, it is the profoundly moving and poetic memoir by Marceline Loridan-Ivens, who at the age of fifteen was arrested by the Vichy government's militia, along with her father. At the internment camp of Drancy, France, her father told her that he would not come back, preparing her for the worst. On their arrival at the camps, they were separated--her father sent to Auschwitz, she to the neighboring camp of Birkenau. The three kilometers that separated them were an insurmountable distance, and yet before he died in the camps, he managed to send her a small note, a sign of life that gave Marceline hope to go on.

In But You Did Not Come Back, Marceline writes back to her father. The book is a letter to the man she would never know as an adult, to the person whose death overshadowed her whole life. Although her grief never diminished in its intensity, Marceline ultimately found a calling, working on behalf of many disenfranchised groups, both as an activist for Algerian independence and a documentary filmmaker.

And now, as France and Europe face growing anti-Semitism, Marceline feels pessimistic about the future. Her testimony is a memorial, a confrontation, and a deeply affecting personal story of a woman whose life was shattered and never totally rebuilt.

BUT YOU DID NOT COME BACK

But You Did Not Come Back: A Memoir

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"You might come back, because you're young, but I will not come back."--Marceline Loridan's father to her, 1944

A runaway bestseller in France, But You Did Not Come Back has already been the subject of a French media storm and hailed as an important new addition to the library of books dealing with the Holocaust. It is the profoundly moving and poetic memoir by Marceline Loridan-Ivens, who at the age of fifteen was arrested in occupied France, along with her father. Later, in the camps, he managed to smuggle a note to her, a sign of life that made all the difference to Marceline--but he died in the Holocaust, while Marceline survived. In But You Did Not Come Back, Marceline writes back to her father, the man whose death overshadowed her whole life. Although her grief never diminished in its intensity, Marceline ultimately found her calling, working as both an activist and a documentary filmmaker. But now, as France and Europe in general faces growing anti-Semitism, Marceline feels pessimistic about the future. Her testimony is a memorial, a confrontation, and a deeply affecting personal story of a woman whose life was shattered and never totally rebuilt.

"You might come back, because you're young, but I will not come back."--Marceline Loridan's father to her, 1944

A runaway bestseller in France, But You Did Not Come Back has already been the subject of a French media storm and hailed as an important new addition to the library of books dealing with the Holocaust. It is the profoundly moving and poetic memoir by Marceline Loridan-Ivens, who at the age of fifteen was arrested in occupied France, along with her father. Later, in the camps, he managed to smuggle a note to her, a sign of life that made all the difference to Marceline--but he died in the Holocaust, while Marceline survived. In But You Did Not Come Back, Marceline writes back to her father, the man whose death overshadowed her whole life. Although her grief never diminished in its intensity, Marceline ultimately found her calling, working as both an activist and a documentary filmmaker. But now, as France and Europe in general faces growing anti-Semitism, Marceline feels pessimistic about the future. Her testimony is a memorial, a confrontation, and a deeply affecting personal story of a woman whose life was shattered and never totally rebuilt.

I AM BECAUSE OF YOU

I AM BECAUSE OF YOU

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"Miriam Dobin, a beloved preschool teacher, has written a moving account of her life as a child of Holocaust survivors. Raised by a loving aunt and uncle, also survivors, while her mother struggled with illness and her father worked long days, she grew up and, finding a perfect match, raised a family of her own. Dobin feels deeply that her story carries forward the history of her people, her culture and her religion, a project accomplished with deep caring and immense love. Her tale of a family that barely survived annihilation crosses the generations, entwining stories of her parents and grandparents with those of her own children. It climaxes in a trip to Slovakia and western Ukraine, where she and her husband meet people who remember her family. Past and future converge when her newborn granddaughter is given the name Esther after Dobin's beloved aunt. This family saga is enriched with first person accounts and photographs, maps, and documents in several Eastern European languages and English translation. The reader will want to follow Dobin's links to YouTube to view some of that material as well as other video clips she has posted in conjunction with her memoir. This is a multifaceted project well done."
I Have Lived A Thousand Years

I Have Lived A Thousand Years

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What is death all about? What is life all about?

So wonders thirteen-year-old Elli Friedmann as she fights for her life in a Nazi concentration camp. A remarkable memoir, I Have Lived a Thousand Years is a story of cruelty and suffering, but at the same time a story of hope, faith, perseverance, and love.

It wasn't long ago that Elli led a normal life that included family, friends, school, and thoughts about boys. A life in which Elli could lie and daydream for hours that she was a beautiful and elegant celebrated poet.

But these adolescent daydreams quickly darken in March 1944, when the Nazis invade Hungary. First Elli can no longer attend school, have possessions, or talk to her neighbors. Then she and her family are forced to leave their house behind to move into a crowded ghetto, where privacy becomes a luxury of the past and food becomes a scarcity. Her strong will and faith allow Elli to manage and adjust, but what she doesn't know is that this is only the beginning. The worst is yet to come...

I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concen

I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concen

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A total of 15,000 children under the age of fifteen passed through the Terezin Concentration Camp between the years 1942-1944; less than 100 survived. In these poems and pictures drawn by the young inmates of Terezin, we see the daily misery of these uprooted children, as well as their courage and optimism, their hopes and fears. The ghetto of Terezin (Theresienstadt), located in the hills outside Prague, was an unusual concentration camp in that it was created to cover up the Nazi genocide of the Jews. Billed as the "Fuhrer's gift to the Jews, " this "model ghetto" was the site of a Red Cross inspection visit in 1944. With its high proportion of artists and intellectuals, culture flourished in the ghetto - alongside starvation, disease, and constant dread of transports to the death camps of the east. Every one of its inhabitants was condemned in advance to die. These innocent and honest depictions allow us to see through the eyes of the children what life was like in the ghetto. The children's poems and drawings, revealing maturity beyond their years, are haunting reminders of what no child should ever have to see. This expanded edition of I Never Saw Another Butterfly is published in cooperation with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
I Want You to Know We're Still Here: A Post-Holocaust Memoir

I Want You to Know We're Still Here: A Post-Holocaust Memoir

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NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARDS FINALIST - "Part personal quest, part testament, and all thoughtfully, compassionately written."--The Washington Post

"Esther Safran Foer is a force of nature: a leader of the Jewish people, the matriarch of America's leading literary family, an eloquent defender of the proposition that memory matters. And now, a riveting memoirist."--Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR


Esther Safran Foer grew up in a home where the past was too terrible to speak of. The child of parents who were each the sole survivors of their respective families, for Esther the Holocaust loomed in the backdrop of daily life, felt but never discussed. The result was a childhood marked by painful silences and continued tragedy. Even as she built a successful career, married, and raised three children, Esther always felt herself searching.

So when Esther's mother casually mentions an astonishing revelation--that her father had a previous wife and daughter, both killed in the Holocaust--Esther resolves to find out who they were, and how her father survived. Armed with only a black-and-white photo and a hand-drawn map, she travels to Ukraine, determined to find the shtetl where her father hid during the war. What she finds reshapes her identity and gives her the opportunity to finally mourn.

I Want You to Know We're Still Here is the poignant and deeply moving story not only of Esther's journey but of four generations living in the shadow of the Holocaust. They are four generations of survivors, storytellers, and memory keepers, determined not just to keep the past alive but to imbue the present with life and more life.

LETTERS TO TALIA

LETTERS TO TALIA

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Dear Dov, You must really be surprised to be receiving a letter from a girl you don't know... Dov Indig was killed on October 7, 1973, in a holding action on the Golan Heights in Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Letters to Talia, published in his memory by family and friends, contains excerpts from an extensive correspondence Dov maintained with Talia, a girl from an irreligious kibbutz in northern Israel, in 1972 and '73, the last two years of his life. At the time, Talia was a highschool student, and Dov was a student in the Hesder yeshiva Kerem B'Yavneh, which combines Torah study with military service. It was Talia's father who suggested that Talia correspond with Dov, and an intense dialogue developed between them on questions of Judaism and Zionism, values and education. Their correspondence continued right up to Dov's death in the Yom Kippur War.

LOSS & LEGACY

Loss & Legacy: The Half-Century Quest To Reclaim A Birthright Stolen By The Nazis

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John Gronner, son of the Jewish owners of a prominent clothing store in the small German town of Ilmenau,devoted his life to reclaiming the property and good name of his forebears after the Nazi Holocaust. Having achieved economic success and social prominence by 1930,the Gronner clan was soon thereafter shunned by neighbors and subjected to economic boycott. Aryan laws forced them to relinquish their business. Deportation and execution followed. Still, the Nazis' aim of obliterating this Jewish family from Ilmenau's history was foiled by the sheer determination of the surviving son, who made it his life's mission to right a grievous hate crime, and to establish his own legacy as an advocate against silence in the face of bigotry.

Memories of Survival

Memories of Survival

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Though never trained as an artist, at the age of 50 Esther decided to retell her childhood memories through this series of hand-stitched panels. These images reveal both the extreme horrors of war and the cherished family memories shared before the war began.
Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne,Poland

Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne,Poland

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One summer day in 1941, half of the Polish town of Jedwabne murdered the other half, 1,600 men, women, and children, all but seven of the town's Jews. "Neighbors" tells their story.
The Tale of a Niggun

The Tale of a Niggun

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Elie Wiesel's heartbreaking narrative poem about history, immortality, and the power of song, accompanied by magnificent full-color illustrations by award-winning artist Mark Podwal. Based on an actual event that occurred during World War II.

It is the evening before the holiday of Purim, and the Nazis have given the ghetto's leaders twenty-four hours to turn over ten Jews to be hanged to "avenge" the deaths of the ten sons of Haman, the villain of the Purim story, which celebrates the triumph of the Jews of Persia over potential genocide some 2,400 years ago. If the leaders refuse, the entire ghetto will be liquidated. Terrified, they go to the ghetto's rabbi for advice; he tells them to return the next morning. Over the course of the night the rabbi calls up the spirits of legendary rabbis from centuries past for advice on what to do, but no one can give him a satisfactory answer. The eighteenth-century mystic and founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, tries to intercede with God by singing a niggun--a wordless, joyful melody with the power to break the chains of evil.

The next evening, when no volunteers step forward, the ghetto's residents are informed that in an hour they will all be killed. As the minutes tick by, the ghetto's rabbi teaches his assembled community the song that the Baal Shem Tov had sung the night before. And then the voices of these men, women, and children soar to the heavens.

How can the heavens not hear?

Voices From The Bialystok Ghetto

Voices From The Bialystok Ghetto

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For more than 70 years a diary that was written in Bialystok during World War II was virtually unnoticed and about to be discarded with trash when someone looked inside and discerned its historic value. It was written between 1939 and 1943 by young David Spiro (in Polish Dawid Szpiro) who probably died during his city's ghetto uprising against the Nazis. The diary described life in the city during Russian and then German governance from the perspective of an ordinary young man - certainly not a charismatic leader. As David explained, "If someone reads my diary in the future, will they be able to believe something like that? Surely not, they will say poppycock and lies, but this is the truth, disgusting and terrible; for me it's a reality." With permission from the current owners, much of David Spiro's poignant first-hand account is reproduced here along with memoirs written by other Bialystokers who lived and mostly died during those terrible times.
For more than 70 years a diary that was written in Bialystok during World War II was virtually unnoticed and about to be discarded with trash when someone looked inside and discerned its historic value. It was written between 1939 and 1943 by young David Spiro (in Polish Dawid Szpiro) who probably died during his city’s ghetto uprising against the Nazis. The diary described life in the city during Russian and then German governance from the perspective of an ordinary young man - certainly not a charismatic leader. As David explained, “If someone reads my diary in the future, will they be able to believe something like that? Surely not, they will say poppycock and lies, but this is the truth, disgusting and terrible; for me it’s a reality.” With permission from the current owners, much of David Spiro’s poignant first-hand account is reproduced here along with memoirs written by other Bialystokers who lived and mostly died during those terrible times.

Faith After the Holocaust

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Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Berkovits's Faith after the Holocaust - recognized as a classic immediately upon publication - boldly and forthrightly addresses the most theologically fraught question of our times: God's noninterference in the Holocaust. With great honesty, erudition, and philosophical depth, this treatise shows "how man may affirm his faith even when confronted with God's awesome silence."