Shtetl: The Life and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews.

Hoffman, Eva

ISBN 10: 0395822955 / ISBN 13: 9780395822951

Published by Houghton, 1987

About this Item

A very nice copy. Seller Inventory # 002858

Bibliographic Details

Title: Shtetl: The Life and Death of a Small Town ...

Publisher: Houghton

Publication Date: 1987

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

Edition: First Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

Based in part on a PBS documentary, a chronicle of the small-town life of East European Jewry from the 1500s to the Holocaust focuses on the ghetto of Bransk, in eastern Poland, whose Jewish members died in the camps.

Review:

Relations between Jews and Poles were troubled even before World War II began, writes Eva Hoffman in this powerful memoir of life under Nazi occupation. Dealings between the groups were no easier with the arrival of a common enemy, who exploited longstanding anti-Semitism to destroy the inhabitants of both city and shtetl, the rural Eastern European small town that stood as "the site of the Jewish soul." This extraordinary account of cultures in conflict has led to much discussion--even controversy--in Europe. Hoffman's vigorously defended view of Poland's role in the Holocaust will doubtless generate debate elsewhere.