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HomeShop at BookSurgeBiography & AutobiographyPersonal MemoirsBehind the Gate: Holocaust Survivors Journey from Vilna to Tel Aviv |
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4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Extraordinary account of a holocaust survivor Apr 22, 2009
By Stephen R. Mccrae Jr.
"Steve McCrae"
Of all the holocaust survivor accounts, this is the most extraordinary one that I have read. It's told by a man who entered the turbulence of War II almost immediately after his bar mitzvah in Vilna, where he had been living an upper-middle class life, and exited it while still a teenager when he escaped from a work camp at the end of the War. He endured the post-war upheavals as an orphan with no home, no family and no means of support. His account of hopping freight trains at the end of the War to Moscow and barely escaping imprisonment and perhaps execution by the Soviet authorities there is harrowingly suspenseful. The heartbreaking stories of the loss of his beloved younger Sister and Father to the death camps and his dear Mother whom he protected and saved from numerous narrow escapes before she was finally taken from him to the killing fields of Polnar, are all too familiar. Yet, through it all he persevered and never lost hope, his humanity and his love of God. Educated in a Hebrew school in Vilna, he worked relentlessly and with a single-purpose to make his boyhood dream of relocating to Israel a reality. Even before he became an adult, he assumed a leadership role in groups of his fellow surviving Jews from Lita, Poland and Russia as they treked their way across Europe and finally reached the shores of what was to become the nation of Israel, landing in the night on deserted coastline in defiance of British orders. He struggled in poverty in Israel at first, but met and married his wife, also a Holocaust survivor, and became successful in every respect. They raised two children in Israel, and he eventually became an integral part of a thriving Israeli holding company, concentrating his talents on finance. The book is short, but I learned more history about the effects of the War on Lithuania and the birth of Israel as a nation than from any textbook. Finally, it has been translated from the original Hebrew into English by his son, and the voice is truly authentic.
Well worth your time Mar 15, 2011
By john snyder
This book is translated by Mr. Schemiavitz's son, Yossi. I know something of the work and the love he put into the translation of his father's story and as fine a holocaust memoir as this is, and it's terrific, it also stands as a tribute from a son to his father. A tribute both in recognition of the hell on earth his father endured and a tribute also to the millions who did not survive.
I am certainly no scholar of the holocaust, but I have read literally hundreds of books on the subject and this ranks among the best because it is so personal. The holcaust has been written in almost every conceivable way; from the formal, impersonal, by-the-numbers way to the intensely personal. Both ways are important, but the personal stories are the one that stay with you. Stories of families being torn apart, with some headed to the gas chambers, others to slower deaths by hard labor, still others surviving by luck, God's grace or a simple combination of circumstances are the basis of an abomination no one should ever forget. This is the story of a man who persevered thru loss of family and friends, thru times that would have broken most people to emerge and build a life beyond, never to forget those who did not survive and to pay tribute to them in the very best way: by living a life of courage, faith and hard work. Those qualities are ones we all hope to emulate. Mr. Schemiavitz has done so to a degree most of us can only dream of.
The horror is here, but also the hope. The cruelty but also the kindness. The despair, but also the renewal of faith. It is only one man's story, but it stands for many who did not survive to tell their own. It is more than worth the telling and the reading. I hope you will do so.
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