Scrolls of Testimony [Hardcover]

Abba Kovner (Author), Edward A. Levenston (Author), Irving Greenberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0827607105 | ISBN-13: 978-0827607101

Scrolls of Testimony is a profoundly moving chronicle of the Holocaust. The author, award-winning Israeli writer Abba Kovner, intended this book as an almost liturgical account of the greatest tragedy to befall the Jewish people, and he wrote it in the Jewish tradition of megillot, or scrolls. Taken together, the pages are reminiscent of the Talmud, with the central text surrounded by notes and excerpts of poetry and prose. Scrolls of Testimony reads like a suspense novel - powerful, dramatic and compelling - but it is more than that. It is the testimony of the author woven with others’ eyewitness accounts, diary entries, poems, and even last wills and testaments. Many of these were carefully recorded and hidden during the war at great personal risk to the writers, who desperately wanted to record the unfathomable events unfolding around them.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this pastiche of Talmudic and modern genres, Kovner, an award-winning Israeli writer, gives a barely fictionalized account of the interconnected lives of dozens of Diaspora Jews in Europe from the early 1930s through the late 1940s. Kovner died before completing Scrolls, but made clear that it should be used liturgically to assist Jews in their remembrance of the Holocaust. One of his characters, the Italian doctor and rabbi Nathan Cassuto, voices this belief when he tells his cell mates at Auschwitz, "Let each of us place his story in the safe keeping of his companion's memory and, God willing, the last of us fated to survive will be the first to write the scroll of testimony for his generation." Similarly, Gonda Redlich, a Czech member of the pioneer youth movement, asks, "Will it be possible for Jews, in times to come, to sit around the Passover table and tell of the Exodus from Egypt without telling of the exodus from Auschwitz?" Woven together in the scrolls are testimonies not only from death camps but also from prewar Jewish communities, partisans and ghettos. Poems, quotations and commentaries surround the central text, like annotations in the Talmud, and add historical context to the fictional narratives. Kovner uses each device brilliantly to enumerate the sects of Jews and factions of Zionists throughout Europe, as well as the many anti-Semitic pogroms they had already suffered. Many survivors have written about the Shoah, as have many talented writers, but a sacred account offered by one who is both a survivor and a gifted author is a genuine treasure. Illus. by Samuel Bak.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Many survivors have written about the Shoah, as have many talented writers, but a sacred account offered by one who is both a survivor and a gifted author is a genuine treasure."—Publishers Weekly

(Publishers Weekly )

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: The Jewish Publication Society (January 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0827607105
• ISBN-13: 978-0827607101
• Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 9.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,881,477 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Holocaust Book Unlike Any Other, March 11, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Scrolls of Testimony (Hardcover)

Highest Recommendation. This is the most remarkable Holocaust book I've ever read.

The author, Abba Kovner, recounts the story of the Holocaust through the eyes of a large, richly described group of characters. These people jump off the pages in all their various costumes, ideologies, hopes and pain. They are mostly Jews, but there are also a few righteous Christians who help them.

Kovner doesn't judge the victims. Those who resisted are not better than those who did not resist. The German murderers are described too, as are their willing helpers in every country and numerous other people who did not murder but were coldly indifferent. But after reading the book, my overwhelming impression is not of hate of the murderers but of appreciation for the victims and their hope, love and humanity.

The book's design is very striking. The pages resemble pages of Talmud with the text in the middle and commentary placed around it in the margins. In this case, the story is in the middle, and the margins contain real victims' poems, comments, last wills and testimonies, historical explanations, songs, and more.

This is a book to read and savour, and also to study.