Dry Tears: The Story of a Lost Childhood [Paperback]

Nechama Tec (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1984 | Series: Galaxy Book (Book 772)

This is the true story of Nechama Tec, whose family found refuge with Polish Christians during the Holocaust. Dry Tears is a dramatic tale of how an eleven-year-old child learned to "pass in the forbidding Christian world and a quietly moving coming-of-age story. This book is unique celebration of the best human qualities that surface under the worst conditions.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A compelling account. Quite accessible."--Michele Bisbey, St. Vincent College

"A beautifully written and poignant account of what it was like for a young girl to be passing as a Gentile in Nazi-occupied Poland."--Evan Hunter

"Dry Tears moves me beyond words....[It] conveys an immediate sense of what [living under the Holocaust] was like, and does so strongly, even nobly, without a trace of self-pity....My admiration has no bounds."--Robert K. Merton, Columbia University

"Render[s] with such honest yet compassionate detail the struggle of Jews to 'pass' as Christians among anti-Semitic people who sheltered them, loved them, lived off them, and finally, after the war, were ashamed rather than proud of having taken [them] in."--Geoffrey Hartman, Yale University

"A story of human resilience...made all the more remarkable because it is seen through the eyes of a young girl who bore herself beyond the promise of her years."--Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler, President, Union of American Hebrew Congregations

About the Author

Nechama Tec is at University of Connecticut, Stamford.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (November 1, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195035003
• ISBN-13: 978-0195035001
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #269,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes there actually are winners in a war., March 15, 2003

By 

Rebekah Sue Harris (West Haven, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dry Tears: The Story of a Lost Childhood (Paperback)

"Dry Tears" is an autobiographical recollection of life in wartime Poland, during the Holocaust. Not only did the author and her sister have to "pass" as non-Jews and live in constant terror of being caught, they also had to worry about their parents, who couldn't "pass" and who lived in hiding.

I've read perhaps a dozen books by Holocaust survivors. This may be the first time that I thought about each individual murder as that: an individual murder, and not as genocide. What happened to the girls' governess in the early pages of the book left me more sleepless than anything since "Anne Frank."

Sometimes, however, there are the occasional winners in a war. The author's family survived as an intact unit. That, dear readers, is a victory.

This book belongs in every historian's library, be it public or personal. Deeply moving, it's not too much for a mature teen to read, and I will be suggesting it to a friend's young adults.

"Dry Tears" will haunt me for a long time.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and deeply moving, November 20, 2002

By 

A. Lord "georgianlover" (Washington DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dry Tears: The Story of a Lost Childhood (Paperback)

Dry Tears is an unforgettable Holocaust memoir and coming-of age story. Tec is a gifted writer and her comments about her experiences are deeply insightful.

Tec was hidden during the war---disguised as a Polish Christian, she lived with a variety of families before settling with a working-class family who also took in her parents (neither of whom spoke Polish well enough to "pass") and her sister.

What is most interesting (and depressing) about Tec's story is her slow realization that the family who took her in was anti-semetic. As a child, she experiences deep confusion about this and wonders how she should feel when the family compliments her by telling her that she is not "like a Jew." Her conflicted feelings about this family (she grows to love and respect them while at the same time being appalled by their prejudice) illustrate one of the greatest paradoxes regarding prejudices (***). The sad truth is that when one looks behind the stereotype one always discovers individuals who defy the stereotype (Tec herself experiences this---she assumes that one of the woman who takes them in---Stella--is a typically stupid and lazy member of the working class but when Stella is tortured by the Nazis and refuses to eveal any information, Tec is forced to look beyond the stereotype todiscover a very real and very complicated individual).

Tec's story also explores an aspect often not found in books dealing with adults under the Holocaust. As a hidden child who could "pass" as a Polish Christian, Tec spent her days as Krysia, a Polish Gentile. Not surprisingly, this caused her to become deeply confused about who she was---like all pre-teens and adolescents, Tec was struggling to discover her own identity but unlike her peers, Tec was forced to hide this identity.

I have read a great number of Holocaust memoirs---and this is not the "typical" memoir (as far as one can say there is a "typical" memoir). Several factors make this book unique---Tec's age at the time of the Holocaust, her insights into her own experiences (not surprising as Tec later became a scholar specializing in this period) and her openness about her struggle to assume an identity at a time when she was forbidden to assume her true identity.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Lesson on Survival, January 3, 2000

By 

Esther Nebenzahl - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dry Tears: The Story of a Lost Childhood (Paperback)

"Dry Tears" is a memoir of the author during the years she and her family struggled for survival in occupied Poland. After many attempts to escape Nazi officials, they find shelter in a small town under the protection of a peasant Polish family, in exchange for financial benefits. The story is a lesson on faith, of compliance to ever adjusting circumstances in an environment filled with prejudice and ignorance. Well written, with no high literary aspirations, but with a high moral content. This is a must for adolescents and pre-adolescents, and for anyone who is not aware of what it really means to face adverse circumstances in life.