Once There Was a Town: The Memory Books of a Lost Jewish World by Jane Ziegelman

 

A powerful exploration of the books created by Jewish Holocaust survivors to honor their lost world

By the close of World War II, six million Jews had been erased from the face of the earth. Those who eluded death had lost their homes, families, and entire way of life. Their response was quintessentially Jewish. From a people with a long-history of self-narration, survivors gathered in groups and wrote books, yizkor books, remembering all that had been destroyed. Jane Ziegelman’s Once There Was a Town takes readers on a journey through this largely uncharted body of writing and the vanished world it depicts.

Once There Was a Town resounds with the voices of rich and poor, shopkeepers and tradespeople, scholars and peddlers, Zionists and Communists, men and women telling stories of the towns that were their homes. Stops are made in the bustling market squares where Jewish merchants catered to local farmers; study houses where men recited Torah; kitchens where homemakers baked 20-pound loaves of bread; cemeteries where mourners conversed with departed loved ones and wooded groves where young couples met for the occasional moonlit tryst. Of the many towns on Ziegelman’s itinerary, she always circles back to Luboml, her family’s ancestral shtetl and the point of departure for her own journey of discovery.

 

About The Author

 Jane Ziegelman is the author of the classic 97 Orchard, and coauthor of the James Beard Award winning A Square Meal. She lives with her husband in Brooklyn, New York.

 

My Review

 

 The author gives us such an amazing read, so many facts that I never knew, and found disturbing.
I am not Jewish, and found this read page turning, and so sad. Breaks my heart what happened here, and it seemed that no one was really trust worthy.
The focus was on a small town in Poland, and memory books, Yizkor Books, I never knew about, but what a gift, hearing the words of your ancestors.
I personally enjoy books about WWII and the monsters that took over Europe, most are fictional, but this one is really personal to the author, and full of written down facts. I never knew of the antisemitism that went on prior to the War, at least in Poland.
I highly recommend this book, and it should be a mandatory read! Thank you to Jane Ziegelman!
I received this book through Net Galley and the Publisher St. Martin's Press, and was not required to give a positive review.