Review by Choice Review
Poland before WW II contained the largest Jewish community in Europe, with nearly three- and-a-half million individuals. The Germans killed 90 percent of Polish Jews during the Holocaust. In contrast to Western Europe, whose Jews assimilated, Polish Jews formed separate ethnic communities. One of the most creative was in Vilna, the "Jerusalem of Lithuania." In this work Abramowicz, who survived the Holocaust and who had been a prominent educator and writer, presents a detailed description of Yiddish culture from before WW I through the 1930s. Invited by his brother to visit him in Canada, Abramowicz was unable to return to Poland and thus survived the Holocaust, which claimed his wife as a victim. The essays in this volume, stemming from the author's newspaper and journal articles, were originally published in a Yiddish edition in Buenos Aires in 1958. They range from a discussion of the German occupation during WW I to one on the diet of Lithuanian Jews. One section presents brief biographies of leading Lithuanian Jewish figures. This valuable collection provides a concrete picture of a lost world. Upper-division undergraduates and above. G. M. Kren Kansas State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
