Algonquin Books
We Must Not Think of Ourselves
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From a New York Times bestselling author Lauren Grodstein, a story inspired by a little-known piece of history in the lives of Jewish occupants of the Warsaw Ghetto in World War II. Called a "masterpiece", and as seen on The Today Show with Jenna pick (Madeline Miller).
On a November day in 1940, Adam Paskow becomes a prisoner in the Warsaw Ghetto, where the Jews of the city are cut off from their former lives and held captive by Nazi guards to await an uncertain fate. Weeks later, he is approached by a mysterious figure with a surprising request: Would he join a secret group of archivists working to preserve the truth of what is happening inside these walls?
Adam agrees and begins taking testimonies from his students, friends, and neighbors. One of the people Adam interviews is his flatmate Sala Wiskoff, who is stoic, determined, and funny--and married with two children. Over the months of their confinement, in the presence of her family, they fall in love. But when Adam discovers a possible escape from the Ghetto, he is faced with an unbearable choice: whom can he save, and at what cost ?
Inspired by the testimony-gathering project with the code name Oneg Shabbat, and told with immediacy and heart, We Must Not Think of Ourselves is a piercing story of love, determination, and sacrifice.
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Book Details
ISBN:
9781643752341
EAN:
9781643752341
Binding:
Hardcover
Pages:
304
Authors:
Lauren Grodstein
Publisher:
Algonquin Books
Published Date: 2023-28-11
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The horror of the Holocaust….specifically the Warsaw Ghetto … is told from a new perspective to me at least… the stories of Jews imprisoned in the ghetto related by themselves… the denials, the class distinctions, the traditions, the living conditions, the starvation, the death…yet even in all of this there was still family and love…the endings were not the same…& may all their stories share with us the truth…
Lauren Grodstein's We Must Not Think of Ourselves is a heartbreaking novel that takes an unflinching look at life in Warsaw's Jewish Ghetto during the early days of World War II. At the center of the story is Adam Paskow, a widowed English teacher, now reduced to sharing an apartment with two other families and teaching a handful of students in the basement of a cinema (in a nod to Uris's harrowing Mila 18, Grodstein places the cinema in Mila Street). Unexpectedly, Paskow finds himself falling in love with one of his flat mates, Sala, the married mother of some of his students. Their affair and the worsening atrocities being inflicted upon the populace of the Ghetto ultimately force Paskow into making a gut-wrenching choice--one in which the lovers must not think of themselves. Terrific, if sobering, read and a reminder that societies can plunge all too quickly into evil. Highly recommended
Focused on the youth, children captive in a ghetto, victims of time, circumstance, an English teacher provides whatever she can through the crumbs of words, of poetry, of imagination, of hope.
This book is beautifully nuanced. Had to read it in bits as it made me so emotional. I rarely give 5 stars. This book deserves each of those 5 stars.
I found this a really different look at the Warsaw ghettos. The horror superimposed on the day to day living that continued to devolve over time and how humans adapt even when faced with absolute terrible outcomes.We must never let this time in history go forgotten.
