Missing Pieces [Paperback]

Stanislaw Benski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 27, 1992

As the director of a nursing home in Warsaw, Benski watched the scant numbers of Poland's surviving Jews dwindle before his eyes. He wrote these stories to preserve their memory. Translated by Walter Arndt. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book. Harvest in Translation series

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Benski's powerful, poignant stories focus on Holocaust survivors struggling to reclaim their lost identities in devastated postwar Warsaw.

Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The stories in this collection accent the lives, broken dreams, and twisted bodies of a group of current old-age home residents in Poland, most of whom are survivors of the Holocaust. The author, who was the director of the nursing home described in the stories, features vignettes about these few remaining Jews in Poland, trying to preserve their memory. These people remember youthful liaisons, family attachments, and unresolved enmity, all of which they relive with the attendants and the other residents. In "Snapshot" the mementos Dora Sharf keeps in a large black handbag jog a memory heavy with tragedy, while "Missing Pieces" tells of a couple who escaped the tragedies of the Holocaust and now reconstruct a curriculum vitae filled with atrocities to share vicariously with their dead relatives and friends. These are people reaching backward for meaning and definition. Poignant and well written.
-Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, Md.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (April 27, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156607980
• ISBN-13: 978-0156607988
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,315,627 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No Longer Missing, March 28, 2006

By 

S. F Gulvezan (Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Missing Pieces: Stories (Hardcover)

Benski's stories rank with Borowski's and Shalamov's in showing in a quiet, subdued way what man can do to man under inhumnan conditions. This collection focuses on the survivors of the holocaust. It is not to missed by any serious reader.