Flares of Memory: Stories of Childhood During the Holocaust [Hardcover]

Anita Brostoff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 24, 2001

In a series of writing workshops at the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, survivors assembled recently to remember the pivotal moments in which their lives were irreparably changed by the Nazis. These "flares of memory" invoke lost childhoods, preserving the voices of over forty Jews from throughout Europe who experienced a history that cannot be forgotten--by them nor us.
Including a timeline that chronicles the rise of the Nazis, their devastating campaigns for control of Europe, and the successive edicts that would annihilate millions, Flares of Memory consists of 92 brief vignettes arranged both chronologically and thematically. Survivors from Munich, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, and the Netherlands recreate the disbelief and chaos that ensued as families were separated, political rights were abolished, and synagogues and Jewish businesses were destroyed--before and especially after Kristallnacht. "We had entered a twilight zone between memories of earning our keep at our occupations and the fear of becoming game during hunting season," writes one survivor. Others remember the daily humiliation, the quiet heroes among their friends, and the painful abandonment by neighbors as Jews were restricted to ghettos, forced to don yellow stars, and loaded like cattle in trains destined for the camps: "We were completely stripped of all human identity." Vivid memories of hunger, disease, and a daily existence dependent on cruel luck in Dachau, Auschwitz, and other concentration camps provide penetrating testimonies to the ruthlessness of the Nazi killing machine, yet they also bear witness to the resilience and fortitude of individual souls bombarded by evil.
This book also includes poignant recollections of American liberators who were often devastated by the horrors that they discovered after the fall of the Nazis. "A mix of emotions--disbelief, rage--overwhelmed us; tears blinded our eyes," recalls one soldier. Flares of Memory will inspire these emotions and will stay with you, long after you finish its pages.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The dozens of vignettes in Flares of Memory: Stories of Childhood During the Holocaust provide personal perspective on one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century. Editors Anita Brostoff and Sheila Chamovitz solicited written testimony from Holocaust survivors, which were developed and sharpened during writing workshops at the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. Each story is about a single event, situation, or person--hence the title's "flares" of memory. The stories come from most of the European countries occupied by the Nazis and are grouped thematically. Section headings include "The Lottery of Death and Life," exploring the randomness of survival; and "Disguise as a Way of Hiding," in which several writers reflect on the experience of pretending to be Christian in order to survive. The end of the book collects the testimony of several former American G.I.'s who helped liberate the concentration camps. In her preface to the book, documentary filmmaker Sheila Chamovitz notes that contributors to this volume wrote for reasons that we have heard before, but which remain powerful no matter how often they are repeated. "They wrote so that the Holocaust would be remembered, so their loved ones would be remembered, and so that no one could say it didn't happen." --Michael Joseph Gross

From Publishers Weekly

Ranging from snapshots of pre-Holocaust life to survival in disguise and portraits of "the virtuous and the vicious," 92 vignettes by Holocaust survivors who participated in writing workshops at the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh are gathered in Flares of Memory: Stories of Childhood During the Holocaust, edited by Anita Brostoff, a retired Carnegie-Mellon University professor, with Sheila Chamovitz, a filmmaker. In "The Last Hiding Place," Libby Stern recounts watching from her home as German troops surrendered to the Russian Army. Hermine Markovitz tells of being saved by nuns in "The Convent in Marseille." A final section collects stories by American liberators.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 24, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195138716
• ISBN-13: 978-0195138719
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,269,130 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting stories, October 5, 2003

By 

Beth Marangoni (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flares of Memory: Stories of Childhood During the Holocaust (Hardcover)

I had to read this book for a class, I am a senior at college. I attend school around the PIttsburgh area, so I am proud to know that this is from here. There is a story Robert Mendler who is a great speaker. he spoke to my class a few weeks ago. It is good to know that the stories are being written down so generations to come will know what happened and how people survived.

4.0 out of 5 stars starkness and horror of the Nazi monstrosity, the tenaciousness of the survivors, and the determination to never forget, June 13, 2010

By 

Gary Selikow (Great Kush) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flares of Memory: Stories of Childhood During the Holocaust (Hardcover)

Puts together a series of vignettes gathered at a writers workshop at the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, of Holocaust survivors who were children or young people when the vents took place.
Highly memorable, touching and at parts harrowing.
Sections on Jewish life before the Holocaust, where witnesses remember their lives in Europe before the Nazi inferno. For example, Marga Randall recalls the wonderful large garden of her childhood home in Schermbeck, Germany, the town which she visited against decades later.
Dora Zueg Iwler recalls how on their final parting her father said "Before I die I would like to see the blue and white Jewish flag". It was her father's dying wish that motivated her to work for the State of Israel making his dream come true in a small way.
The Destruction Of A Society focuses on the brutality of Kristallnacht and the destruction of Jewish life in Germany. Ruthlessness As A system examines the genocide by the Einsatzgruppen and the horrors oft he death camps. Survivors relate what they witnessed and how they survived. The very uncertainty and seeming small chance of whether one would survive is captured in The Lottery of Death And Life. Disguise As A Way of hiding relates how Jewish children and teenagers hid from the Nazi killing machine, often disguised as Christians while The Virtuous and the Vicious deals with the heroic gentiles who risked everything to help Jews to survive, as well as those evildoers who turned Jews in or helped the Nazis in their genocide.
Other chapters examine other aspects. The starkness and horror of the Nazi monstrosity, the tenaciousness of the survivors, and the determination to never forget is brought to life in these pages of this important testimony

Particularly pertinent at a time when Israel-the Jewish state- and the home of so many survivors and their descendants is fighting for her life, against a world in which Jewish life has again become cheap and there are those determined to destroy her and all her people,as vowed by would be Hitler, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.