Embattled Selves

Twenty-four survivors of the Holocaust discuss how they embraced, concealed, rejected, or otherwise dealt with their Jewishness under the Nazis, and explore the implications of their decisions for the nature of human identity. 15,000 first printing. National ad/promo.

People who struggled with their Jewishness during the Nazi era--discovering, rejecting, embracing or concealing their Jewish identity as a result of persecution--are the focus of these 15 remarkable life histories culled from interviews with 280 individuals. Czech-born Hilda Dujardin could have protected her family by establishing her mother's "Aryan" ancestry; instead she took a stand as a Jew and was sent to a concentration camp. Romulus Berliner, born into an Orthodox Jewish household, volunteered for the Nazi SS while imprisoned in a Hungarian labor camp; he lived under a non-Jewish identity for the next three years, then informed his commanding SS officer that he was a Jew. Dvora Goldenberg, taken from her parents in Amsterdam at age four by Jewish underground members, spent the next 14 years with a family of devout Protestants in the Dutch countryside; rejecting her foster parents' values, she sought out her Jewish faith. Jacobson, a freelance writer, has produced a moving oral history that throws a floodlight on universal issues of identity, such as how one sees oneself and how a particular course of action shapes one's life.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A dramatic exploration of varying degrees of Jewish identity espoused, concealed, or denied by 15 Holocaust survivors during and after the war. Jacobson, a writer and editor in Washington DC, interviewed more than 280 Holocaust survivors from several countries. The oral histories are 90% narration, broken only occasionally by editorial additions for clarity. Dutchman Maurits Hirsch survived by assuming the identity of a Christian, becoming the mayor of a small town in the process. While he was a dutiful civil servant for the Nazis, he actively assisted the underground and later was able to return to the observant Judaism he had practiced before the war. German Gabriel Ritter, on the other hand, abandoned the religion of his boyhood after acting so well as an Aryan for several years that he ``actually felt like a non-Jew.'' Ritter later went on to a career on the stage. Rev. David Kornbluth of Holland was, even before the war, a devout Hebrew-Christian, and he remained one, confusing everyone but himself. Czech Hilda Dujardin had every right to call herself an Aryan, having but one Jewish grandfather, yet she volunteered to have the life-threatening ``J'' stamped on her ID card, as this was a ``time to take my stand as a Jew.'' Frenchman Etienne Lenoir, however, found it a ``heavy burden to be bound to people [Jews] with whom [he] had no bonds.'' Also trapped in his Jewish body is a Romanian named Romulus, whose circumcised penis nearly kept him from earning the handsome German auxiliary uniform he needed to survive. But only by displaying this same mark did he avoid execution by liberating Russians who didn't believe he was a Jew in disguise. The author guides us in analyzing patterns and changes in the narrators' journeys into the self, but he doesn't interfere with our own interactions with these remarkable lives. This poignant and provocative book goes beyond its historical setting to get to the heart of why people do or don't identify with ethnic, national, or religious groups. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From 280 interviews, Jacobson has culled the oral histories of 10 men and 5 women who discovered, concealed, embraced, or rejected their Jewishness in the face of Nazi Germany's final solution in Europe during World War II. These people were in a position of having to choose between a Jewish and a non-Jewish identity or to find a way of making the two coexist. There were those who assumed a non-Jewish persona in an attempt to foil the Nazis, and those who revealed or insisted on a Jewish connection even when it put them at peril. And there were those who had Jewishness thrust upon them--those who had been unaware of their Jewish background before being threatened because of it or who had known of it but had wanted no part of it. In these compelling stories about 15 Holocaust survivors, Jacobson raises fundamental questions about attitudes, conscious choices, and what ultimately is essential about relationships. George Cohen

In his introduction, writer/editor Jacobson tells of meeting with an elegant and urbane Frenchman who seemed wholly perplexed when questioned about his Jewish background and his experience as a survivor of the Holocaust. Initially, he denied everything and only later shed his cover briefly. All 24 interviewees in this book tell a similar story. The experience of living under false pretenses during this horrific time took its toll and left survivors with divided personalities, especially those who were only marginally practicing Jews beforehand. Jacobson's book is a keen psychological study of double identity and denial. Recommended for libraries with large Holocaust and psychology holdings.
Paul Kaplan, Lake Villa Dist. Lib., Ill.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.