Customer Reviews

Kaddish for Kovno: Life and Death in a Lithuanian Ghetto 1941-1945

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This memoir is a great and important work. Mishell was one of the few survivors of the Kovno ghetto, and if one wishes to learn about the destruction of Jews on Soviet territory, this is the book to read.

This is an amazing book detailing the agony of striving to survive the Kovno Ghetto. It is written in a very down to earth style, and the reader is not spared the horrifying truth. I say it is a must read for anyone who really wants to understand what WWII ghetto life was like for Jews and the cruelty men are capable of. The author tells the story of how through his ingenuity he made it through his experiences. He boldly shares his intimate moments with such honesty. It is well written and makes you feel like you are there. Reading this book is a life altering experience. However it is not one we should ignore if we never want to see a repeat of this again. An eye opener for anyone who takes the Holocaust lightly or really doesn't know what happened. My understanding is that this book was out of print for a long time.

The inner jacket says, it "...is a story of ingenuity and heroism as well as of destruction. The Jews of Kovno secured food, smuggled children to safety, set up hospitals, a police force, and even a ghetto orchestra in the face of numbing deprivations and brutality. The workshops they created, among them a graphics and a toy making workshop, brought a degree of order and protection to their participants that enabled them to live, work, and even love until the last shattering year of the war."