A Vanished World (Paperback)

~ (Author, Photographer), Elie Wiesel (Foreword) "1: The rosh yeshiva (head or director) of a religious school..." (more)
Key Phrases: Carpathian Ruthenia, Nat Gutman, Rabbi Rabinowitz

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Roman Vishniac's A Vanished World is an extraordinary record of the lives of German and Eastern European Jews in the years immediately preceding the Holocaust. Vishniac, a Russian Jew, began to take photographs of village life during World War I, when Russian Jews who lived near the front were accused of being German spies and were deported to Siberia. He later moved to Germany, where he witnessed the horrible events of Kristallnacht and the anti-Jewish legislation that allowed Hitler to declare his enemies stateless and therefore unworthy of international protection. As we study Vishniac's photographs--a surviving fraction of the more than 16,000 he took--we are aware that we are seeing the faces of those soon to die, witnessing a world that has all but perished. Yet that world, of shops and schools, of busy streets and quiet farms, remains with us if only as a ghostly memory, thanks in part to Vishniac's compassionate eye.

Product Description

This pictorial history of Jewish life in Germany in the 1930s before the Holocaust, shows the stories of individuals, their increasing poverty, sad wisdom and enduring love in the years leading up to World War II.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st PB Edition edition (October 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374520232
• ISBN-13: 978-0374520236
• Product Dimensions: 11.6 x 10.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #568,693 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alive, at Most, in Memory, August 3, 2001

By	"mrsfaganselves" (huntington, ny United States) - See all my reviews

One look at the pages of this wrenching book will tell the story. Roman Vishniac, secretly, in some cases, shot thousands of pictures of the Jewish population of Eastern Europe, shortly before they were swallowed up by the Holocaust.

Young, old, in-between are shown going about their ordinary lives, some already paying the price of the prevalent Eastern European anti-Semitism, virtually oblivious to what was coming their way.

You can't look at these pictures and not shudder: certainly no one in these pictures can still be alive, and it's not just because of the passage of time. Most of the people photographed here lived in the smaller villages, segregated in many cases from the Gentiles, wearing clothes that quickly and easily identified them to their destroyers.

Vishniac shot an estimated 16,000 pictures, but managed to get only about 2,000 out when he fled to the United States in 1940. We should be grateful for what he's given us, and mourn all that was lost.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Take A Journey into a Vanished World, December 28, 1999

By	Jacob J. Pinsky (Far Rockaway, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A Vanished World (Hardcover)

Open this book and you will enter a world of the vanished, but not vanquished. Roman Vishniac's stunning black and white photographs of the destroyed Jewish communities of Eastern Europe will surely enter your heart, as they have mine. The simple, sometimes stark compositions are primarily of the faces of Jews long lost in the flames of the Holocaust. Most of the photographs have a brief explanatory comment that gives them context. Vishniac takes us into the tiny basement apartments of Warsaw's Jewish porters, the logging villages of Carpathian Ruthenia, and the narrow streets of Vilna. I found myself drawn into that world where Jews worked, studied, walked on their way to and from synagogues or markets, plowed fields and played in the streets. My own family originated in that world, and I thank Roman Vishniac for giving me a glimpse of it. I highly recommend this book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A stunning historical record, February 11, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

I was amazed at the quality of the images and the sensitive approach to what has become an amazing record of that,which many of us could only imagine from verbal accounts.It is without doubt the best photographic recording of a society which was to be brutally decimated. Vishniac's photographic artistry in my mind are on a par with Cartier Bresson whom I greatly admire. Thanks to the publisher for printing such a wonderful book.