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

Hoffman, Eva

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0395822955 ISBN 13: 9780395822951

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1997

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.

About this title

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.

About the Author:

Eva Hoffman was born in Cracow, Poland. She has written two critically acclaimed books, Lost in Translation and Exit into History: A Journey Through the New Eastern Europe, and is a former editor of the New York Times Book Review. Hoffman currently lives in London.

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0395822955
• ISBN 13: 9780395822951
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 269