No Common Place: The Holocaust Testimony of Alina Bacall-Zwirn - Hardcover

Bacall-Zwirn, Alina; Stark, Jared

4.25

8 ratings by Goodreads

9780803212961: No Common Place: The Holocaust Testimony of Alina Bacall-Zwirn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803212968 ISBN 13: 9780803212961

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 1999

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"You know, a lot of people like to talk about it, and I'm always pushing, pushing away, you know, I'm always pushing. I hate to remember, I hate to talk about it." But in the wake of her husband's death, and afraid that the story would never be told, Alina Bacall-Zwirn, a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto and four Nazi concentration camps, decided to remember and to bear witness to the history she and her husband suffered together. In a unique format that combines personal testimony, photographs, letters, legal documents and contributions from Alina's family; No Common Place interweaves a survivor's story with her reflections on the impact of her traumatic past on herself and her family. As it follows Alina through conversations with Jared Stark and with interviewers at the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, and as it records her participation in the dedication ceremonies of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the books speaks to the importance of the individual's voice in shaping collective memory of the Holocaust. The supporting materials—chronology, maps, and notes—allow the survivor's voice to serve as a guide to the study of the Holocaust and its aftermath.

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About the Author:

Alina Bacall-Zwirn was born Alinka Handszer in Warsaw, Poland, in 1922. Married in the Warsaw ghetto and a survivor of four Nazi concentration camps, she immigrated to the United States with her husband in 1949. Alina died in 1997, one month after completing her testimony. Jared Stark is Assistant Professor of Literary Cultures at the John W. Draper Interdisciplinary Master's Program in Humanities and Social Thought at New York University.

Review:

"Achingly honest and sensitively narrated, No Common Place is no common memoir. Weaving together testimony, dialogue, letters, and documents, it moves with grace between the past and the present. Through these seamless transitions, we learn—or perhaps remember anew—that the past is not really past; it lives on in us and in our families. This is an extraordinary and most welcome addition to Holocaust literature."—Deb�rah Dwork, Rose Professor of Holocaust History and director of the Center for Holocaust Studies at Clark University (Deb�rah Dwork)

"Through its rare and moving commitment to the authenticity of the survivor's voice, No Common Place conveys both the lacerating details of Alina Bacall-Zwirn's past and the deeply humanizing story of her efforts to leave a legacy of memory to her children and to future generations. Jared Stark's sensitive arrangement of this testimony allows us to hear the urgency and vulnerability of her voice as she recalls the atrocities she and her community suffered. Stark's book is a contribution both to the historical record and to the crucial study of what it means to live in the aftermath of the Holocaust. "—Geoffrey Hartman, project director of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University (Geoffrey Hartman)

"A wrenching human tale of terrible tragedy and the power of love. . . . Lacking any trace of sentimentality or drama, and told in a series of interviews by a woman who never quite mastered English, this powerful story illustrates the impossibility of weaving a coherent narrative from the shattered memories of those years. At the same time, the reader gradually discovers the extraordinary strength of the love which sustains both Leo and Alina."—Times Literary Supplement (Times Literary Supplement)

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