Izzy's Fire: Finding Humanity In The Holocaust - Hardcover

Beasley, Nancy Wright

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1556182074 ISBN 13: 9781556182075

Publisher: Nancy W Beasley, 2004

Synopsis

Edna Ipson, Holocaust survivor, now 93 years old, sees her family's story of struggle and survival recorded and published. Brunswick Publishing has just released Izzy's Fire: Finding Humanity in the Holocaust by Nancy Wright Beasley, which focuses mainly on the Ipson family's life in hiding in a Lithuanian farmer's potato field.The book depicts how 13 members of five Jewish families survived the Holocaust through their own ingenuity and the generosity of a poor Catholic farm family. All 13 Jews ended up living in a 9'x12'x4' underground hole as World War II raged around them. Some lived underground for about seven months before being liberated by the Russian Army.Dr. Michael Berenbaum, project director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (1988-1993) and author of The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum, says, “Izzy's Fire is filled with the passion of one woman determined to do justice to the story of another woman who lived in hiding throughout the war years. The war has soul. One feels the intensity of the struggle to survive. One senses the decency of those who were ready to rescue and the evil that haunted a mother and father and their young child in the dangerous world they lived. Nancy Wright Beasley has told a powerful story with dignified restraint. She has given voice to an underreported side of the Holocaust – life in hiding.” Adriana Trigiani, author of the best selling Big Stone Gap trilogy, offered early praise for the book. According to Trigiani, “Nancy is a passionate, dedicated writer who has written a searing story, sure to capture readers with Izzy's Fire. She proves herself to be a storyteller who uses firsthand accounts and research with equal resolve.” Beasley draws from personal interviews, research and numerous memoirs, including extensive memoirs from Israel “Izzy” Ipson, who helped his family escape from Kovno Ghetto, one of the most notorious killing fields for Jews in Lithuania. The Ipps, as they were known then, relocated to Richmond following their liberation and later changed their name to Ipson. The story has been re-created at the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond, Virginia.Izzy's Fire, which encompasses Virginia Standards of Learning at a variety of levels, will be taught as a pilot project in several eighth grade language arts classes in Chesterfield County public schools during the 2004-05 school term.

About this title

About the Author

Nancy Wright Beasley’s seven-year journey that led to this book began when she heard Alan Zimm, a Buchenwald survivor, recite names of family members who died in the Holocaust. Beginning to understand the significance of recording survivor history, she read memoirs, interviewed survivors and discovered the miraculous journey that finally led Edna Ipson and her family from the heel of the Nazis to "the other side of hell." She tells of their journey in Izzy’s Fire.

Beasley's journalistic career spans 25 years, beginning with seven years as a state correspondent for The Richmond News Leader. She has been a personal columnist and contributing editor for Richmond magazine since 1997. Beasley has written several national award-winning columns and articles for the magazine, as well as other publications.

A recipient of a master’s degree from Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Mass Communications, Beasley now teaches there.

Review

Nancy is a passionate, dedicated writer who has written a searing story, sure to capture readers with Izzy's Fire. She proves herself to be a storyteller who uses firsthand accounts and research with equal resolve. --Adriana Trigiani, author of the best selling Big Stone Gap trilogy

About this edition

• Publisher: Nancy W Beasley
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1556182074
• ISBN 13: 9781556182075
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 289