ALICIA: My Story

Gripping, assiduously detailed, and consonant with other survivor narrations, this chronicles the harrowing experiences of a young Polish gift during the Holocaust and adds another bravely observant voice to the record. Born in Buczacz, Poland, Jurman lost the members of her immediate family one by one, and here she recalls the harsh circumstances of their deaths--a grandfather dug his own grave and was buried alive--with unsettling precision. Forced to live on the sly during the war years, she hid in the forest (once in a hollowed-out oak tree) and did day work for nearby farmers; rescued, fortuitously, some Russian partisans and won a medal for her efforts; prison stints, serious illness, and sudden separations from those with whom she forged new ties. Alicia always emerged with presence undiminished and energies intact: at 15, she organized an orphanage for concentration camp survivors, then joined the Brecha, taking groups en route to Eretz Israel through Poland and beyond. Ultimately, after prison camp in Cyrus, she emigrated to Israel, married an American, lived and raised her family here. Re-creating these incidents with a strong sense of immediacy, the author serves as yet another witness to the shame and horrors of those times and, in contrast to equally appealing contemporary Anne Frank, as a model of more active home-front heroism.