13 Stradomska Street: A Memoir of Exile and Return - Softcover

Potok, Andrew

4 out of 5 stars

8 ratings by Goodreads

9781942134305: 13 Stradomska Street: A Memoir of Exile and Return

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1942134304 ISBN 13: 9781942134305

Publisher: Mandel Vilar Press, 2017

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"Potok is blind but he makes us see not only the pre-World War Two landscape from which he and his family fled, but also how and why and at what price." Jay Neugeboren, author of "Max Baer and the Star of David" and "Imagining Robert"

"Potok explores the long reach of both his family's 1939 escape from Poland and his own blindness in this thoughtful and elegant memoir." Elinor Langer, author of "Josephine Herbst" and "A Hundred Little Hitlers."

When Andrew Potok was eight he fled with his family from Warsaw, leaving home and business to escape the invading Nazis. The family made it to American, but Andrew’s memories of violence, Jew hatred, and betrayal--including that of his father--erupted into nightmares and eventually formed the backdrop of his rich, though at times turbulent, life as an artist and writer.

When, late in Andrew's life, a Polish lawyer offers to help him reclaim property in Krakow that was wrongfully inherited by a relative, he and his wife revisit Poland, with its still-virulent anti-Semitism. The visit awakens long-dormant memories and provokes deep reflections on the nature of evil. The ongoing lawsuit becomes emblematic of the book’s central theme: There can be no closure for survivors of the Holocaust--no justice for either victims or perpetrators, no compensation, and no forgiveness.

Andrew Potok was a successful visual artist until he went blind in his forties. He then turned to writing and published "Ordinary Daylight, Portrait of An Artist Going Blind," "My Life With Goya," and "A Matter of Dignity." He lives in Vermont.

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About the Author

Andrew Potok was a successful visual artist until he started going blind in his early forties. He then turned his creative talents to writing and published his first book, a memoir, when nearly fifty, Ordinary Daylight, Portrait of An Artist Going Blind published by Holt Rinehart and Winston, and later in paperback by Bantam; His second book, My Life With Goya, a novel, was published by Arbor House; His third book is A Matter of Dignity, non-fiction, by Bantam/Random House; and his last book My Father’s Keeper, a novel, was published by Fomite Press. He lives in Vermont.

Review

“I was deeply stirred and instructed by 13 Stradomska Street. Rare enough to find a book that reads wholly, convincingly honest, a memoir that doesn’t try to tunnel away from unwelcome truth via exit routes of bad faith. But Andrew Potok's book is more than a fine memoir. It's also a profound meditation on human evils, on the Poland in the heart, on the persistence of the unforgivable, and on the intelligent human labor to live rightly nevertheless. I cannot recommend it too highly.” ―Todd Gitlin, an American writer, sociologist, communications scholar, novelist, poet, and public intellectual, is the author of sixteen books, including The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America Is Wracked by Culture Wars; The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage; Inside Prime Time; The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left; and Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street

"A terrific book! I could not put it down. I admire the way the book turns back and forth between the author’s childhood memories and his blind journey back to Poland, weaving between the personal and the political. Potok knows how to draw the reader into his story. Take for example the opening narrative with its deft evocation of childhood smells and Jewish cooking in Poland; the moving imagined conversations with his dead grandparents; the difficult, complex analysis of his father's almost disastrous actions at the Lithuanian border in flight to freedom during the war; and above all his profound and deeply layered account of hatreds he encounters, both before and after the War.”―Roger Porter, author of three books on the subject of autobiography, The Voice Within: Reading and Writing Autobiography; Self-Same Songs: Autobiographical Performances and Reflections; and Bureau of Missing Persons: Writing the Secret Lives of Fathers.

“This is a remarkable and memorable book in which horror is leavened by humor, and betrayal and venality by the riches of discoveries that come with time. . . and always, always, with a thoughtful, probing of the ways the past both imprisons us and sets us free." Potok is blind but he makes us see, as never before, not only the pre World War Two landscape from which he and his family fled, but of how and why and at what price, despite all, they survived.” Jay Neugeboren, is the author of Max Baer and the Star of David, A Novel, and other award-winning novels (The Stolen Jew, Before My Life Began, 1940, The American Sun & Wind Moving Picture Company, and Poli); nonfiction (Imagining Robert, Transforming Madness); and four collections of prize-winning stories.
“A civilized man in an uncivilized world, painter Andrew Potok examines the long reach of both his family's 1939 escape from Poland and his own encroaching blindness in this powerful and elegant memoir.” -- Elinor Langer, author of Josephine Herbst: The Story She Could Never Tell and A Hundred Little Hitlers: The Death of a Black Man, the Trial of a White racist, and the Rise of the Neo-Nazi Movement in America"

I was deeply stirred and instructed by 13 Stradomska Street. Rare enough to find a book that reads wholly, convincingly honest, a memoir that doesn’t try to tunnel away from unwelcome truth via exit routes of bad faith. But Andrew Potok's book is more than a fine memoir. It's also a profound meditation on human evils, on the Poland in the heart, on the persistence of the unforgivable, and on the intelligent human labor to live rightly nevertheless. I cannot recommend it too highly.” Todd Gitlin, an American writer, sociologist, communications scholar, novelist, poet, and public intellectual, is the author of sixteen books, including The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America Is Wracked by Culture Wars; The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage; Inside Prime Time; The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left; and Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street

"A terrific book! I could not put it down. I admire the way the book turns back and forth between the author’s childhood memories and his blind journey back to Poland, weaving between the personal and the political. Potok knows how to draw the reader into his story. Take for example the opening narrative with its deft evocation of childhood smells and Jewish cooking in Poland; the moving imagined conversations with his dead grandparents; the difficult, complex analysis of his father's almost disastrous actions at the Lithuanian border in flight to freedom during the war; and above all his profound and deeply layered account of hatreds he encounters, both before and after the War.” Roger Porter, author of three books on the subject of autobiography, The Voice Within: Reading and Writing Autobiography; Self-Same Songs: Autobiographical Performances and Reflections; and Bureau of Missing Persons: Writing the Secret Lives of Fathers.

This is a remarkable and memorable book in which horror is leavened by humor, and betrayal and venality by the riches of discoveries that come with time. . . and always, always, with a thoughtful, probing of the ways the past both imprisons us and sets us free." Potok is blind but he makes us see, as never before, not only the pre World War Two landscape from which he and his family fled, but of how and why and at what price, despite all, they survived.” Jay Neugeboren, is the author of Max Baer and the Star of David, A Novel, and other award-winning novels (The Stolen Jew, Before My Life Began, 1940, The American Sun & Wind Moving Picture Company, and Poli); nonfiction (Imagining Robert, Transforming Madness); and four collections of prize-winning stories.
A civilized man in an uncivilized world, painter Andrew Potok examines the long reach of both his family's 1939 escape from Poland and his own encroaching blindness in this powerful and elegant memoir.” -- Elinor Langer, author of Josephine Herbst: The Story She Could Never Tell and A Hundred Little Hitlers: The Death of a Black Man, the Trial of a White racist, and the Rise of the Neo-Nazi Movement in America"

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