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Embattled Selves: An Investigation into the Nature of Identity Through Oral Histories of Holocaust Survivors

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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.

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.

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.

Through absorbing biographies of Holocaust survivors, Embattled Selves explores issues of identity that transcend the Holocaust itself. Each of the fifteen individuals studied in the book underwent some challenge to their identity during the war. Some were Jewish, but disguised themselves as Christian. Others were half-Jewish and had to come to terms with, or reject, their part-Jewish heritage. Still others did not even know they were Jewish (or part-Jewish) until the war forced their lineage to the forefront. The manner in which these individuals dealt with their identities both during the war and afterwards is fascinating and thought-provoking.

The success of Embattled Selves results directly from the manner in which Jacobson presents these remarkable individuals. The author permits each survivor to relate his/her own story through oral testimony. Jacobson's impartial narrative introduces the separate topics, and explains certain terminology, but in no way seeks to dominate the accounts. The reader is allowed to explore and ponder the issues raised at his own pace with a trusted guide at his side. What makes people who they are? Why do certain inviduals embrace their heritage while others reject it? What effect does the attitudes of parents, friends, and loved ones have on an individual's sense of identity? Can a person ever really abandon an identity? Or does a repressed identity live on? What impact does the desire to belong have on an individual's attitude towards a "minority" identity?

To its credit, Embattled Selves does not seek to provide definitive answers to any of these questions. The final examination is left to the reader, who may discover previously ignored issues of identity in his/her own life.

We continue to read stories of the Jews who were rounded up and taken to the concentraion camps, and although most of us have thought "How awful" we have also probably thought "I'm glad it wasn't me." But, what if you awakened one morning to find the Gestapo at the front door and were told you were under arrest because you were a Jew. Your first thought would be "surely this is a case of mistaken identity! "

"Embattled Selves" by Kenneth Jacobson documents the lives of 15 people who during World War II discovered they were "Jewish" because the Nazis said so. Some of them had Jewish ancestors several generations removed they never knew existed. Some knew they had Jewish ancestors, but they or their parents had converted to Christianity. Some were born into religious Jewish families, but no longer practiced the religion.

Many of the more introspective of us spend our lives thinking about who we are, how we became who we are, or how we can become who we want to be. I have been working on my family geneology for some time. Since my mother was Dutch, after I read this book by a man named Jacobson who was Jewish, I took a closer look at the family tree. There are some interesting characters in the branches--with last names like Jacobson.