HEAR O ISRAEL: A Story of the Warsaw Ghetto

In four starkly brief chapters narrated by young Isaac: one family's experiences from the terrible persecutions before the Ghetto wall was built until their death at Treblinka. Isaac describes his older brother's bar mitzvah; the starvation and typhus that claimed thousands of lives (including his mother's and baby sister's); the horrifying train ride (it occurs at the time that Isaac's bar mitzvah would have taken place); and the faith, courage, and unity with which he, his Papa, and other men walk forward, praying, to their death. The early part of the narrative is so austere that the reader may be distanced, but the events of the concluding tragedy are wholly compelling. Bloom's moving, somber b&w paintings focus on faces where terror and anguish are tempered by long-suffering patience and love.