Nazi Germany's Final Solution confronted Jews caught in its web with the ultimate challenge to identity - all those who fit the Nazis' purportedly racial notion of "Jew" were placed under sentence of death, irrespective of how they lived, what they believed, or who they took themselves to be. Their very origins having become an inexorable threat to their existence, these people were forced to come to grips - consciously or unconsciously, in word or deed - with their Jewishness. Embattled Selves presents the life stories of fifteen men and women who discovered, concealed, embraced, or rejected their Jewishness as a result of Nazi persecution. Theirs are atypical stories, the stories of people whose physical and spiritual survival came to depend on the mutability of the self. In these pages we meet those who shed their Jewishness to become lost in the crowd; those who, never having considered themselves Jews, had Jewishness thrust upon them; those who defiantly proclaimed their Jewishness despite the consequences; and those who went beyond concealment to join the forces of genocide. Told against the backdrop of the horrors of World War II, these narratives combine the tantalizing suspense of adventure stories with the vivid detail of the best of oral history. Throughout, however, the focus is on identity. The words these survivors speak as they recreate the historical and mental universe in which they lived, as they tell of the choices they made and the paths they took, dramatically highlight questions that concern all of us. In today's world of ethnic reawakening and shifting political boundaries, these stories have a particular urgency.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
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.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
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.
Paul Kaplan, Lake Villa Dist. Lib., Ill.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Serious and fascinating,
By A Customer
This review is from: Embattled Selves: An Investigation into the Nature of Identity Through Oral Histories of Holocaust Survivors (Hardcover)
Given the seriousness of the subject matter, I expected this book to be dry and scholarly, the kind of thing you read because you should. It's not at all like that. The stories are riveting and Jacobson's writing is clear, elegant and accessible. Philosophical questions about the nature of identiy are raised, but Jacobson doesn't impose any answers. He leaves the reader to ponder the issues. I read this book in one sitting and came away from it not depressed but invigorated.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Harrowing stories that must be told,
By
This review is from: Embattled Selves: An Investigation into the Nature of Identity Through Oral Histories of Holocaust Survivors (Hardcover)
Asking "Which part of me is essential? Who will I be if I give it up?" Jacobson sought out almost 300 Jewish holocaust survivors. Facing persecution and death, some had concealed their Jewishness, some embraced it, some only discovered it when it was thrust upon them by the Nazis.From tape-recorded interviews Jacobson chose 15 life stories and organized them into five categories, the three already mentioned and two more - those of mixed origin whose non-Jewish side protected them from some persecution, and young children whose Jewish identity was concealed from them during the war. For those who concealed their Jewishness, the issue was straightforward. Romulus Berliner, a Transylvanian, joined the SS when the opportunity presented itself after his escape from a forced-labor camp. He never forgot who he was although he tried. "You have to switch yourself off," he said, believing that Germany would win the war and "Jewry will no longer exist." He imagined a life in hiding, deep in Russia, where he wouldn't be "taken prisoner for not being who I was supposed to be." When it became clear Germany would lose, he cast off his assumed identity and "out of joy" proclaimed his Jewishness to the officer he served - who got up and never spoke to him again. Hilda Dujardin, half-Jewish, married to an Aryan, joined the Jewish community when it became dangerous to do so. She ended up in a concentration camp but her account is full of the small acts of bravery and compassion committed by people around her and her own sometimes irrational acts of defiance - refusing to vacate the path of an SS horseman, for instance - which led to condemnation from frightened Jews who hoped to stay alive by attracting no notice. The young experienced the most confusion. Ariel Levy's mother was arrested in 1942 when he was 8 years old. "When she disappeared I somehow knew: 'I'm in the nightmare.' " He spent the war shunted from family to family and joined a Hitler youth group. "I had to become something else completely and to repress that part of me which was Jewish so deeply that I wouldn't be bothered all the time thinking about the duality....When you are in the nightmare, you are no longer troubled by things changing." After the war he went "to save Israel," but was soon disillusioned by the hard work and the rigid system, though he kept the Hebraicized version of his name. Jacobson's focus on identity offers a different perspective, but however intellectual the approach, sheer survival becomes the riveting force in any holocaust account. Luck, the occasional act of bravery or craven betrayal capture the reader's attention more completely than any questions of identity.
5.0 out of 5 stars
fascinating,
By
This review is from: Embattled Selves: An Investigation into the Nature of Identity Through Oral Histories of Holocaust Survivors (Hardcover)
This is the best book on identity I've read yet, because it's in the words of people for whom the issue was truly life and death. Though the book is scholarly enough to be an academic work, it is very readable because it is almost entirely first person accounts.
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