Awakening Lives: Autobiographies of Jewish Youth in Poland before the Holocaust [Hardcover]

Professor Jeffrey Shandler (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2002

A collection of autobiographies written by young Polish Jews in the 1930s. The candid writings reveal not only the personal struggles, ambitions and dreams of 15 young authors, they also reveal with unprecedented intensity the nature of ordinary Jewish life in Poland in the years between the world wars. Unlike later writers for whom it became impossible to view this time except through lenses tinted by nostalgia or horror, these adolescent Jewish authors, unaware of the catastrophic future that awaited, tell their stories with a simple directness, describing their lives as they understood them at the time. The autobiographies presented in the volume are selected from hundreds that were written for contests in the 1930s sponsored by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, then based in Vilna. Nine male and six female authors write from a variety of circumstances that reflect the great diversity of Jewish life in interwar Poland; some of the writers are ardently secular and others, devoutly religious; some are impoverished and others come from the working class or middle class; some are highly-educated and others, self-taught. They come from big cities, small towns, and villages, and they are affiliated with Zionists, Bundists, communists, multiple political groups, or none. Often surprising in their opinions and feelings, the young people also display different personalities, writing styles, and views of life. Their voices speak now across the chasm of history, providing a moving testament from the vantage point of young Jews in the final years before the Holocaust.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Perhaps this autobiography will change the course of my life. This is something new for me. I have never before examined my life seriously." - from the autobiography of 'Esther', nineteen years old, written in 1939

From the Publisher

Published in cooperation with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; First Edition edition (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300092776
• ISBN-13: 978-0300092776
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,498,207 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heartbreaking, fascinating introduction to the modern Jewish experience, December 12, 2007

By 

Leyener - See all my reviews

This review is from: Awakening Lives: Autobiographies of Jewish Youth in Poland before the Holocaust (Hardcover)

Awakening Lives consists of a dozen or so autobiographies written by Polish Jewish adolescents in the 1930s. These autobiographies, translated from Yiddish, Polish, and Hebrew, are not only extraordinarily moving but also offer an incomparably rich, kaleidoscopic point of entry into the life of Europe's largest, most creative, and most bewilderingly divided Jewish community prior to the Holocaust. Selected from several hundred such autobiographies written for contests in 1934, 1936, and 1939, the essays here capture Polish Jewry in all its variety. Some writers hailed from the wealthy, urbane Polish-Jewish bourgeoisie, while others were raised in the grindingly poor, often broken families which crowded the Jewish slums of Warsaw and Lodz or Poland's increasingly depressed small towns(shtetlelkh). Some were steeped in religious tradition (though many rebelled against it) while other grew up in families which had already embraced an idealized secular European modernity. At the same time, however, the essays reveal the shared predicaments and dilemmas which make this period of Polish Jewish history so fascinating and so important for understanding both the modern Jewish experience and the modern European experience as a whole. In an environment of rising anti-semitism, spiralling economic breakdown, and intensifying political conflict across Europe, the autobiographers grappled with the great political questions of the era and the proper response on the part of Jews, the nature of Jewish identity and culture, and the question of their own future (and whether, indeed, they had one). At the same time, they wrestled with tremendous candor with the intimate questions of selfhood, sexuality, and worldview common to modern childhood and adolescence. The fact that almost all of these writers would be killed in the years that followed will no doubt haunt many readers and, perhaps, discourage others; the frankness of these autobiographies may disturb those who idealize Jewish life in the old world. But I know of no more moving, gripping, or honest way of encountering the real, complex individuals who made up that world.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Historical treasure, August 30, 2011

By 

S.B. Lerner "Author, In the Middle of Almost ... (New York, United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Awakening Lives: Autobiographies of Jewish Youth in Poland before the Holocaust (Hardcover)

This compilation of autobiographical essays written by teenagers from all walks of Polish life in the 1930s is a rare glimpse into an era which has been largely eclipsed by the Holocaust. While the prose is not always poetic, most are written with stark honesty. The lives of many were very hard, poverty was rampant and survival far from assured. Yet the main thing that struck me was that most of these essays were written by young men and women in the throes of adolescence, struggling to find themselves, to find love, to fulfill their dreams, whether that meant writing or teaching or going into business or going to Palestine. They show a variety of personalities and a cross sample of backgrounds, from fairly well-to-do to the most dismal poverty. Some had great fortitude and endless inventiveness, others were depressed and despondent.
I actually used this book for research for a novel I wrote. It is very difficult to get first hand accounts of the 1930s in Poland. The recollections of survivors are often colored by nostalgia or simply too painful to recount. But these were written contemporaneous with the events they describe, and so present a more accurate picture.
They are, however,difficult to read in the sense that these young people were unaware of what was to come--but the reader is. Most of these young, vital people, did not survive.