Smugglers. A Novel in Three Parts (No. 1) [Hardcover]

Oyzer Warshawsky (Author), Golda Werman (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 9652294268 | ISBN-13: 978-9652294265 | Publication Date: November 10, 2008

Smugglers. A Novel in Three Parts deals with a neglected chapter of history -- the First World War in Poland during the period of the German occupation. The Jews in the Pale of Settlement, mainly small shopkeepers and poor craftsman, suffered from discrimination and persecution under the Russians. When the Germans conquered most of what was once Congress Poland, the Jews had some relief from Russian anti-Semitism, but the economic situation became even more grievous. Famine and typhus were rampant and the economic decline left the poor cobblers, tailors and tradesmen without work and with their meager savings depleted. They were desperate. And then they hit upon a scheme.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Oyzer Warshawsky was born in Sochaczew, Poland in 1898. He moved to Warsaw as a young man and began to work on his first novel, Smugglers, during World War I. The book, published when he was only twenty-one, was an outstanding literary success, highly acclaimed by the critics and an instant best seller. It went into many editions. His second eagerly awaited novel, Harvest Time, was published in 1926 in Paris where he had made his home. The book disappointed his readers and, crushed by the critics cool response, Warshawsky gave up writing novels and began a new career as an artist and an art critic. In 1941 he fled Nazi-occupied Paris for Marseilles, then Nice and finally Rome, where his hiding place was discovered by the Gestapo. In May 1944 he was sent to Auschwitz and murdered.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Gefen Publishing House (November 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9652294268
• ISBN-13: 978-9652294265
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 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: #2,705,788 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating novel filled with finely drawn characters, pathos, humor and drama, May 25, 2009

By 

Israel Drazin (Boca Raton, Florida) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Smugglers. A Novel in Three Parts (No. 1) (Hardcover)

Readers familiar with the best Yiddish literature, such as Sholem Aleichem's famous tales of Shtetl life, especially the story made into a play and film and called Fiddler on a Roof, have come to expect that the Jews that are portrayed in this literature are God fearing and observant naifs, dedicated to "tradition" and doing nothing really wrong. Warshawsky's Yiddish novel goes beyond this mold, and as translated by Golda Werman, it is a gripping and charming tale of Jews who, although as observant as the Fiddler Jews, are also appealing criminals, determined to save themselves from starvation by breaking the restrictive law of the German occupiers of their land.

The Jews are pitiful yet humorous persons living in Poland during the First World War, during the period of German persecutions. They are smugglers who earn a modest livelihood by buying small quantities of food and smuggling them into starving Warsaw. Some get money by brewing illegal brandy.

The Germans forbid both activities. They place guards at random sites on the road to Warsaw to confiscate the goods. Some soldiers follow the rules and seize everything. Most are interested in bribes.

The smugglers need to fool the armed German guards. They solve their dilemma by the clever device of placing non-Jewish prostitutes on their wagons. The girls distract the guards as planned. But the ploy produces a new problem for their wives and for the men themselves, for the men are unaccustomed to deal with seductive non-Jewish girls. "Something has suddenly changed" in the Shtetl! our author exclaims.

Warshawsky portrays his many characters - Jews, Germans and prostitutes - in telling detail, with pathos and arresting drama. His characters are humorous and tragic, like the woman who is so overwhelmed by the well-dressed German seeking her distilled brandy that she brings him a wet and dirty chair to sit on, and like the voluptuous woman who saves her smuggled articles from German confiscation by sleeping with the guard, and the father who sends his daughters to the German commandant to entice the officer to save him.

The novel is generally written in the present tense - as in, "Pantel the wagon driver stretches out" - giving the reader a sense of being present during the drama. It is written in three parts, like the three developing disclosures in the three acts in a play. The tale is suffused with sex and the drinking of brandy; the first for pure enjoyment; the second for escape from the misery and degradation of life.

Pantel's lust is the most striking example of sex: "He is panting for her, burning, as if a hot iron rod had been placed on his stomach. He goes out into the fresh air, but it doesn't help - he is even more uncomfortable, even hotter with desire. Finally he goes into the stall and mounts the stallion. He stands up and sits down, stands up and sits down until he feels he is about to faint. Finally he stops. His eyes are filled with tears and he almost falls off the horse."

Another example is Mendel, Pantel's religious and naïve son, who is overcome with love for the prostitute Natasha. "Then she takes his hand in hers and gently strokes it. Mendel does not understand - is this the Natasha from his past or is this someone else, someone new to him? The dreamy look in her blue eyes makes him feel this. It's as if he is with a nice girl, from a good rabbinical family."

Still another is the time that Berel is seduced by the priest to convert to Christianity by using a Christian girl: "She put his hand inside her bosom and sat on his lap. The long and the short of it is that he went to the priest." But this is only the beginning of this episode. The reader of Smugglers will want to hear how Berel acts when sobered by marriage to this girl.

Oyzer Warshawsky (1898-1944) was born in Poland and wrote this novel in 1920 when he was only twenty-one. It was an instant best seller. Golda Werman, who translated it, is a Milton scholar, the author of Milton and Midrash, and has translated many other Yiddish works. Warshawsky was murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz in 1944, but his novel in the magnificent Werman translation lives on to be enjoyed today and tomorrow as well.