Customer Reviews

Children of the Holocaust: Conversations with Sons and Daughters of Survivors

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a daughter of Holocaust Survivors, when I first read this book (over 15 years ago), I was astounded. This author was the first to raise the issue at all: how has the Holocaust affected those whose parents survived it? When I was growing up, not only was the Holocaust itself practically a taboo subject, but no one ever, ever discussed the children of Survivors. This author had the courage, the foresight, and tenacity to do just that - and to do it in the most sensitive and articulate way.

When I first read the first chapter, I was so astounded that I stood up, and read that chapter standing up! She describes exactly, to the letter, how I felt growing up: that the Holocaust was a locked black box in your household, and that its secrets were more secret than sex, or anything else you can possibly imagine. Finally, someone has put on paper what I always felt, but could never describe. Everyone I have ever given this book to, no matter what his or her background, said he couldn't put it down. To anyone interested in the Holocaust - you must read this book!

As the child of a survivor, this book talks about many of the things our family kept silent. Just reading that even one other person out there had similar feelings, experiences, and views was so very comforting. It is important that society acknowledges the 2nd Generation's special status. May the memory of all who perished, of all who survived, and all who have come after them be ever for a blessing.

While there have been many books written detailing the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust, Helen Epstein places its impact in the context of both survivors and their families, specifically their children. Ms. Epstein's briliant narrative conveys her own family's history interweaving it with the histories of many others, both highlighting common ground and preserving the uniqueness of each. For me, as a "Child of the Holocaust", this book showed me that my feelings of alienation and unique perspective on man's potential brutality to his fellow man, both indirect consequences of my parents' wartime experiences, are shared within a community. This change in perspective lead me to the realization while the Children of the Holocaust are a separate and special group, we share common bonds with the descendents all persecuted people, and there are many, far too many, such children in the world. This book profoundly changed my outlook on the world and my view of my place in it. It has also helped others better understand my family and me. There can be no higher praise for literature, and I am very grateful to Helen Epstein for writing Children of the Holocaust, and to those taking the time to read it.

How can you say this is "nothing new"? I think the amazing contribution of this book is how it deals with the holocaust across generations. Most books I have seen dealing with survivors only talk about their time in the camps and not how it affected them when they were freed. This book tells the story of Helen's mother, but it also talks a lot about how children respond to their parents' experiences. I think this book is extremely valuable to understanding transgenerational effects of the Holocaust. I highly recommend this book to children of Holocaust survivors, or people who know children of survivors.

Helen Epstein offers a unique perspective on this nightmarish aspect of our world history by weaving the stories of children of holocaust survivors into a tapestry you won't soon forget. In turns horrific and haunting, she introduces us to real people with all too real pasts, wrenching us with their tales or amazing us with their fortitude, but always doing so with simplicity and ease. Her prose reads almost like someone's diary that you stumbled onto in an old chest in the attic, and you find yourself unable to put it down as you wrap yourself up in all these lives. I promise you'll never look at the Holocaust the same way again

I read this book many years ago. I was greatly moved by it, and through it understood the special burden children of survivors have to live with. Helen Epstein was the first to really explore the feelings and situation of the children of survivors. The secretness she writes about it, the things which were in the air but never spoken about play a large part in this.
I do remember having one point in which I felt the author did not do enough. While she deals with the individual psychological of problems effectively she does not really consider the ' collective side' of the disaster.
The imperative to keep the Jewish people alive after such a great disaster is not a subject she dwells on intensely.

After reading this book for a history of WW II class I heard a friend in class remark to the professor, " Dr. K. I want you to know that this book has touched me and mde me do a lot of thinking. Of course I have trouble sleeping at night." The professor replied, " Good I have succeed in this class. I made you think and contemplate." I couldn't agree more. This book is a wonderful book that not only explores the long range consequences of the Holocaust but also show that over fifty years later the ripple of effects are shaping this century even as we approach the next millenium.

This book was riveting. I found amazing revelations about my own childhood while reading this book, and I quickly discovered I have some background in common with the author. Never before has any psychology, non-fiction or self-awareness book kept me in such profound awe or has unlocked the key to understanding the emotional, mental and physical impact of my being one of a half million children of Holocaust survivors raised in America.

I purchased this book for a friend who had been unable to get a copy here in Australia.

As an 'outsider' to the experiences described I find this book remarkable in its bredth and depth. Epstein manages to convey as much in between the lines as she does in her sensitive, unjudgmental tellings. She has allowed her subject to expand and flow without careful categorisation and containment so that I have the sense that most children of survivors would find something to recognise in this book.

What a humane and remarkable writer she must be I would like to read more of her work.

This book changed my life. I am a child of a Holocaust survivor.
Thank you Helen Epstein.