For The Genocidal Jews in the Audience...
As part of my volunteer job, I just finished reviewing a book for Amazon.com. It's a collection of letters written by a Polish Jewish family trapped in the Cracow Ghetto during the early years of World War II. I didn't rate it as high as the other reviewers because, even for an anthology, I felt like it should have included more history and documentation than it did.
Otherwise, I recommend
For a year now, I’ve been writing a movie about the downfall of great societies in war--as exemplified by the Nazi invasion of Poland. Contrary to pop history, the campaign was difficult and costly for the Germans. Many of the weapons and tactics which made the Whermacht seem invincible by the summer of 1940, were tested first in the Spanish Civil War, and then baptized in Poland. And yet here is also where Germany is cursed, and its eventual defeat foretold.
So it’s a happy coincidence that Amazon offered some research material to preview. The journalist Richard Hollander sadly lost his parents in a car-crash, only to find a treasure trove of letters from a bloodline he never knew existed-and which presumably ceased to exist under the Nazi regime. The only survivor was his own father, Joseph…
Since I’m an Irish-Italian ex-Catholic myself, I welcomed this opportunity to get an inside look at Jewish Poles surviving under national madness. I leapt at the anthology Every Day Lasts a Year: A Jewish Family’s Correspondence from Poland.
Right away, readers might be tempted to tag this tome as a Polish Diary of Anne Frank. But the comparison would only be accurate in general theme. As co-writer Chris Browning states, “This collection of letters to Joseph Hollander from various members of his family in Cracow is precisely that-a collection of family letters.” Indeed, Joseph’s own letters, and hence much of his thoughts, were lost to the Nazis.
The man himself was almost lost due to the shameful xenophobia of pre-war America. Indeed, the central theme of this book is family against almost global oppression, in which humanity dithered, stalled, or otherwise enabled the Germans to commit genocide.
And so the first part of the book chronicles Joseph Hollander’s journey, from an immigrant denied entry into every nation he tried, to an American soldier who returned to liberate his own homeland, and finally his resolve to build a new life. Part Two delves into the Nazi hell which descended over Hollander’s native city, as described by Chris Browning. It includes a background analysis, by Nechama Tec, of the correspondence written by the subjects of occupation.
Which takes me to the letters themselves. Readers looking for eyewitness detail of Poland’s Jewish Ghettos will not find it here; as the authors explain, the Hollander family was forced to write in code or generalities to avoid mail censors. What readers will find are the attempts to maintain family connections, and relate family affairs, over a tense, two-year period leading up to Germany’s declaration of war against America. Here, the correspondence is cut off, as are their authors. Until then, the letters show a family increasingly dependent upon their patriarch to rescue them, even as he battles tooth and nail to prevent the INS from deporting him back to fascist-controlled Europe.
For the most part, the record on this branch of the family seems next to nonexistent, and that undermines the very foundation of the book as history. Due the depredations of the Nazis, few family documents survive beyond these letters. Nazi documentation in the book is little more clear, and the actual fate of the family is never conclusively demonstrated; at best, Joseph tracks down vague witness testimony that his family might have been shipped to the Bergen-Belsen forced labor camp, coinciding with a train schedule here or a depopulation order there. Yet the prose suddenly announces with authority that the family is deceased.
Otherwise, the book relies heavily on outside records and testimonies to fill in the story behind the anthology. The authors clearly tried to find survivors who remember the Hollander family, to little avail. Ultimately the segments on the Cracow ghetto are filled in by accounts of people unrelated. Some of these pieces are nevertheless fascinating.
That’s the one other thing, aside from the thin family record, that bothers me. The authors did employ original interviews from Polish survivors, as well as heavy amounts of documentation on Joseph’s side of the story. Yet none of this material is reproduced in the book. I consider items-- such as ruling statements in which appeals court after appeals court tries to deport Joseph; interview transcripts; and German documents relating to the Cracow ghetto--to be anthology worthy. Also, the book cites Joseph’s unfinished autobiography from time to time, a piece which I feel also should have been included.
It’s these gaps in fundamental aspects of the narratives, unavoidable or not, which makes this anthology average instead of good. Now that the Red Cross has declassified its World War II archives, it may be possible for researchers to track down more conclusive documentation, and in a future edition of this book I think it would be worthwhile to include some of its source material, especially the original interviews.
Otherwise, Every Day Lasts a Year achieves its own title, in providing the accounts of a family under siege, a family which did not relent hope for their fortunate son, brother, or brother-in-law, even as their own chances of survival faded away. As far as the niche goes for World War II and Genocide related correspondence goes, I can recommend this book as a fair representative of a Polish-Jewish perspective in war.
for people interested in World War II correspondence and documentation.
Otherwise, I recommend
For a year now, I’ve been writing a movie about the downfall of great societies in war--as exemplified by the Nazi invasion of Poland. Contrary to pop history, the campaign was difficult and costly for the Germans. Many of the weapons and tactics which made the Whermacht seem invincible by the summer of 1940, were tested first in the Spanish Civil War, and then baptized in Poland. And yet here is also where Germany is cursed, and its eventual defeat foretold.
So it’s a happy coincidence that Amazon offered some research material to preview. The journalist Richard Hollander sadly lost his parents in a car-crash, only to find a treasure trove of letters from a bloodline he never knew existed-and which presumably ceased to exist under the Nazi regime. The only survivor was his own father, Joseph…
Since I’m an Irish-Italian ex-Catholic myself, I welcomed this opportunity to get an inside look at Jewish Poles surviving under national madness. I leapt at the anthology Every Day Lasts a Year: A Jewish Family’s Correspondence from Poland.
Right away, readers might be tempted to tag this tome as a Polish Diary of Anne Frank. But the comparison would only be accurate in general theme. As co-writer Chris Browning states, “This collection of letters to Joseph Hollander from various members of his family in Cracow is precisely that-a collection of family letters.” Indeed, Joseph’s own letters, and hence much of his thoughts, were lost to the Nazis.
The man himself was almost lost due to the shameful xenophobia of pre-war America. Indeed, the central theme of this book is family against almost global oppression, in which humanity dithered, stalled, or otherwise enabled the Germans to commit genocide.
And so the first part of the book chronicles Joseph Hollander’s journey, from an immigrant denied entry into every nation he tried, to an American soldier who returned to liberate his own homeland, and finally his resolve to build a new life. Part Two delves into the Nazi hell which descended over Hollander’s native city, as described by Chris Browning. It includes a background analysis, by Nechama Tec, of the correspondence written by the subjects of occupation.
Which takes me to the letters themselves. Readers looking for eyewitness detail of Poland’s Jewish Ghettos will not find it here; as the authors explain, the Hollander family was forced to write in code or generalities to avoid mail censors. What readers will find are the attempts to maintain family connections, and relate family affairs, over a tense, two-year period leading up to Germany’s declaration of war against America. Here, the correspondence is cut off, as are their authors. Until then, the letters show a family increasingly dependent upon their patriarch to rescue them, even as he battles tooth and nail to prevent the INS from deporting him back to fascist-controlled Europe.
For the most part, the record on this branch of the family seems next to nonexistent, and that undermines the very foundation of the book as history. Due the depredations of the Nazis, few family documents survive beyond these letters. Nazi documentation in the book is little more clear, and the actual fate of the family is never conclusively demonstrated; at best, Joseph tracks down vague witness testimony that his family might have been shipped to the Bergen-Belsen forced labor camp, coinciding with a train schedule here or a depopulation order there. Yet the prose suddenly announces with authority that the family is deceased.
Otherwise, the book relies heavily on outside records and testimonies to fill in the story behind the anthology. The authors clearly tried to find survivors who remember the Hollander family, to little avail. Ultimately the segments on the Cracow ghetto are filled in by accounts of people unrelated. Some of these pieces are nevertheless fascinating.
That’s the one other thing, aside from the thin family record, that bothers me. The authors did employ original interviews from Polish survivors, as well as heavy amounts of documentation on Joseph’s side of the story. Yet none of this material is reproduced in the book. I consider items-- such as ruling statements in which appeals court after appeals court tries to deport Joseph; interview transcripts; and German documents relating to the Cracow ghetto--to be anthology worthy. Also, the book cites Joseph’s unfinished autobiography from time to time, a piece which I feel also should have been included.
It’s these gaps in fundamental aspects of the narratives, unavoidable or not, which makes this anthology average instead of good. Now that the Red Cross has declassified its World War II archives, it may be possible for researchers to track down more conclusive documentation, and in a future edition of this book I think it would be worthwhile to include some of its source material, especially the original interviews.
Otherwise, Every Day Lasts a Year achieves its own title, in providing the accounts of a family under siege, a family which did not relent hope for their fortunate son, brother, or brother-in-law, even as their own chances of survival faded away. As far as the niche goes for World War II and Genocide related correspondence goes, I can recommend this book as a fair representative of a Polish-Jewish perspective in war.
for people interested in World War II correspondence and documentation.