| Summary: | Moving artfully and easily from past to present, from a child's perspective to an adult's, Shlomo Breznitz's many voices relate this poignant, gripping, and often terrifying memoir. Caught in Czechoslovakia during the Holocaust, Breznitz and his family moved from village to village until it became clear that there was no escaping the Nazis. Before they were sent to Auschwitz, however, Breznitz's parents persuaded the Sisters of Saint Vincent to take their two recently converted children into the convent's orphanage. Shlomo - called Juri - was just six years old. Separated from his parents and from his sister, Judith (the nuns segregated the sexes, and communication between them was rarely allowed), Juri recounts his often devastating experiences with the other orphans, the nuns, his teacher and classmates at the village school, the prelate and the mother superior, and the Nazi officers who periodically visited the orphanage. He describes his overwhelming feelings of isolation and loneliness, his persistent dread of being found out as a "stinking Jew" (constantly hiding his circumcision), his earnest determination to be a good Catholic, and the crushing sense of danger that loomed over him at every moment. Memory Fields, however, goes beyond its recollections of childhood. It speaks also for Breznitz the psychologist, as he explores the nature of cruelty and kindness, of stifling fear and outstanding courage, of memory and the ways in which it shapes our lives. In the last chapter of the book, almost fifty years later Breznitz returns to Czechoslovakia and revisits the places so vivid in his memory, in hopes of finding the nuns who saved his and his sister's life. A stunning and evocative story, beautifully told.
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