DAVID: Testimony of a Holocaust Survivor

by Ezra BenGershom ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 12, 1988

An extraordinarily vivid and moving account--written in 1967 and only now appearing in English--of life in Hitler's Germany. BenGershom was 11 years old when Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933. From then until his escape to Palestine in 1944, he experienced the gradual stripping away of Jews' rights, as he and his family moved around Germany, finally settling in Berlin. While emigration was still possible for Jews, Ezra--or David, as he calls himself in the book--was sent to a kibbutz for young Jews planning to go to Palestine. What started out as a training camp to turn city boys and girls into hardy pioneers became a grim labor camp. At his father's insistence, David ran away from the camp right before he and most of his fellows were to be ""evacuated"" and ""resettled."" From that time (May 1942), David lived in Berlin illegally, hiding first in a friend's apartment, then in his parents' (until they were deported), and finally in a German shoemaker's house. A scientist by training, BenGershom combines an extraordinary sense of significant detail with a compelling prose style: ""We were like fossil Jews who had somehow survived into Berlin's new post-Jewish age."" His descriptions are unforgettable: of his moving silently around the apartment; of his hours spent studying Hebrew, which ""had never been so deeply profaned as my German mother tongue. . .""; of his trying to escape the anger of the shoemaker who soon came to regret his generosity of offering a hiding place; of his days spent wandering Berlin, often going to the zoo, where he found refuge watching the reptiles: ""what an excellent effect it had on the nerves, studying salamanders and watching turtles glide silently through the water."" An eloquent testimony of the survivor's experience as BenGershom re-creates brilliantly the fear, humiliation, and heartbreaking isolation of that time.

Pub Date: Sept. 12, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Berg--dist. by St. Martin's Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1988

Categories: NONFICTION