RYWKA'S DIARY

Name: RYWKA'S DIARY
Author: Rywka Lipszyc
ISBN: 978-0-06-238968-8

THE WRITINGS OF A JEWISH GIRL FROM THE LODZ GHETTO

by Rywka Lipszyc ; edited by Jewish Family and Children's Services of San Francisco ; translated by Malgorzata Markoff ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 2015

It is well-known that many diaries were written during the Holocaust. Most, like their authors, were lost. Only a few, like...

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During the dark days of the Holocaust, a bright 14-year-old girl of the Lodz ghetto committed her deepest feelings to a diary. Now that important diary is published.

Lipszyc’s journal was found at the end of World War II near an Auschwitz crematorium by a Russian army doctor who left it to her daughter, who passed it on to the Jewish social service organization that sponsored its translation and publication. But the author did not perish at Auschwitz. Unlike all her immediate family, she survived the war, her destiny after it unknown. Her adolescent diary begins during the Jewish New Year in the fall of 1943 and ends just after Passover the following spring. The teenager, whose parents had already perished, writes of her beloved ghetto mentor, Surcia. Lipszyc and her siblings lived with young cousins in a household headed by a girl a few years older. Her brother and sister were deported by the Nazis in a roundup of Jews deemed useless. Throughout the diary, hope and faith yield to misery and despair. Hours of factory work and attempts at sewing lessons precede inevitable declines in health and spirit. It was a cold winter in the Lodz ghetto. Rations were meager, and food was stolen. People slowly starved to death. Awaiting necessary identification cards, missing daily portions of soup, wondering who stole precious marmalade, and counting the latest deaths, Lipszyc wrote her poetry and reflections: “What’s going to happen tomorrow, we don’t know!... / Oh, God! Help us at last!” The brief diary is supported by contributions of valuable essays.

It is well-known that many diaries were written during the Holocaust. Most, like their authors, were lost. Only a few, like Lipszyc’s, survived. Her ultimate fate may be unknown, but her journal of torment is a testament to the survival of the human spirit in the face of evil.

Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-06-238968-8

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: July 14, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015

Categories:

HISTORY | HOLOCAUST | JEWISH | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY

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THE VIRGINIA ADVENTURE

ROANOKE TO JAMES TOWNE: AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL ODYSSEY

by Ivor Noël Hume ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 20, 1994

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Grounding his story in documentary and fragmentary archaeological evidence, British archaeologist Hume (Martin's Hundred, 1982) tantalizingly reconstructs the history of the earliest English settlements in America. The British drive for colonies grew out of England's 16th- century rivalry with Spain; hence the earliest English settlements in America were planted in the midst of the ``Terra Florida'' that explorers had claimed for the Spanish crown. After some abortive attempts to create an English foothold in the New World, Sir Walter Raleigh sent more than 100 English colonists under gentleman-artist John White to lay claim to the land the Elizabethans called ``Virginia.'' They landed in Roanoke, in what is now North Carolina, in July 1587. After establishing a fort and colony, White and some members of the group returned to England. When several more English ships arrived in Roanoke in 1589, the colony had vanished with few, cryptic traces. Hume painstakingly reviews the sparse evidence, both from contemporary journals and from modern forays over the site, of the Lost Colony: Almost surely, the settlers were massacred by Indians, although little evidence exists today either of their presence at Roanoke or of their fate. Similarly, Hume tracks the more successful but often tragic history of the Jamestown settlement from its birth in 1607, using artifacts and journals of the period to trace the colony's growth from its unpromising beginning as a small disease-ridden group of adventurers into a prosperous community. Hume focuses particularly on the relationship between the settlers and the Indians, which went from mutual idealization to demonization within a few years. This culminated in the 1622 slaughter by the Indian chief Opechancanough of English settlers in the area around Jamestown and an English backlash against the natives that spelled the ultimate doom of their culture. Hume breaks little novel historical ground, although he eloquently recounts the archaeological record and brings alive the lost settlements of the early American past with wit and style. (164 illustrations) (Book-of-the-Month Club selection)

Pub Date: Sept. 20, 1994

ISBN: 0-394-56446-4

Page Count: 528

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL HISTORY | UNITED STATES | HISTORY

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THE OTHER MRS. KENNEDY

ETHEL SKAKEL KENNEDY: AN AMERICAN DRAMA OF POWER, PRIVILEGE, AND POLITICS

by Jerry Oppenheimer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 23, 1994

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Yet another Kennedy bio from the school of journalism that mistakes an avalanche of minutiae for the thoughtful examination of a life. No irrelevant detail—from the length of her skirts to the thank-you notes she sent her dressmaker—escapes examination in this account of Ethel Kennedy's life. If Oppenheimer (Barbara Walters, 1990, etc.) has a point of view, it seems to be that being rich and famous is hell, and it is hell squared if you're both a Skakel and a Kennedy. A brief review of Ethel's ancestors takes the reader back to Yazoo County, Miss., and her great-grandfather, who was one of 11 children. Ethel herself was one of seven in an unruly tribe, wealthy and privileged but undisciplined. Her brothers terrorized Greenwich, Conn., with their antics, as some of Ethel's 11 children would later terrorize Hyannis Port, Mass., and Hickory Hill, Va. The young Ethel was nevertheless a good fit for the Kennedy family. Athletic, schooled by the nuns of the Sacred Heart (as were Rose and her daughters) to give husband and children priority in life, she was an exuberant, extroverted complement to the sometimes melancholy Robert F. Kennedy. She also bravely faced tragic loss—her parents, her brother, her brother-in-law, her husband, a son. But she was a notorious penny-pincher, could be vindictive and unreasonably demanding, and was given to rages after Bobby's assassination. That her flaws and her family scandals overshadow her virtues and accomplishments make this unrewarding reading. Arranging index cards in the right order does not make for enlightening biography. With her children leading relatively useful lives and with a personal history of philanthropic activism, Ethel deserves better. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen) ($150,000 ad/promo)