Flares of Memory: Survivors Remember – Stories of Childhood during the Holocaust

Featured Book

Reviewed by Dr. Gideon Greif

Anita Brostoff (ed.) with Sheila Chamovitz
Oxford University Press, 2001
344 pages

This compendium of testimony, written by survivors, is a product of memory-writing workshops conducted by editors Brostoff and Chamovitz. The book covers many aspects of Holocaust research: Jewish life before the Holocaust, the destruction of the family unit, daily dangers, hope and despair, humiliation, poverty, hiding, hunger, and religious life. The book also focuses on the Righteous Among the Nations and the sustaining power of familial ties. Other topics covered are the aftermath of the Holocaust and the liberation period, making for an extensive, varied collection of Holocaust memoirs.