Jack and Rochelle: A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance (Paperback)

~ (Author), Rochelle Sutin (Author), Lawrence Sutin (Editor) "My mother and father met just after the end of World War I..." (more)
Key Phrases: food raids, partisan groups, Nalibocka Forest, Nei Freimann, World War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sutin (Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick) crafted this Holocaust account from a series of interviews he conducted with his parents. Narrating alternately, Jack and Rochelle vividly describe how they, as Polish Jews, fled separately in 1942 from their respective ghettos, where they had been relocated by the Germans. Each hid in the woods; and, after harrowing encounters with anti-Semitic escaping Russian soldiers, Rochelle joined Jack's group of Jewish partisans. Although mere acquaintances before the outbreak of war, Jack and Rochelle became lovers and together fought in the resistance movement, enduring near-starvation, disease and the constant threat of capture by Germans and Poles. After the war, the Sutins married and emigrated to the U.S. An unsentimental and informative story. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Jack and Rochelle Sutin take turns narrating their harrowing story of the Holocaust, edited by their son, Larry, the author of Divine Invasions: The Life of Philip K. Dick. The couple first met briefly at a school dance in Stolpce, Poland, and then again in the winter of 1942^-43 in a woods after making separate escapes from Nazi ghetto labor camps. In the woods they joined a Jewish partisan group, lived in inhuman conditions, and fell in love. German troops, Polish police, and Russian partisans--who hated the Jews--all made their survival arduous. In the summer of 1943, they joined a much larger partisan group (about 300 fellow Jews), and that August the Germans sent 20,000 troops into the forest to put down the resistance. Jack and Rochelle escaped into the swamps and were eventually liberated by Russian forces. The story has a happy ending; the Sutins were married and in 1949 emigrated to the U.S. George Cohen --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Press (June 24, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555975038
• ISBN-13: 978-1555975036
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #100,203 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you, Jack and Rochelle, June 5, 2000

By	"sus_ell" (The Wheat State) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jack and Rochelle: A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance (Hardcover)

In recent years, some accounts of Holocaust survivors have been called into question as to their veracity. But this narrative, told alternately by Jack and Rochelle Sutin has the absolute ring of truth. The accounts of their experiences in the forests of Poland as part of the armed Jewish resistance are thrilling and heart-breaking by turn. Their survival is miraculous, considering that for more than two years they were hunted every day by Nazis, anti-Semitic Polish farmers, and even Russians by whose sides they were fighting.

Jack and Rochelle tell their story in a very straightforward manner, setting forth details which must be painful beyond telling to remember. I am filled with admiration for their ability to move forward and agree that giving life to a new generation is the best revenge for all the horrors they suffered.

Adding much to the book are an eloquent preface and afterword by the Sutins' son, Lawrence, who compiled and edited the material. His love and respect for his parents are evident with every word he writes, and he tells quite honestly how hearing these stories since early childhood has affected his and his sister's lives.

An important addition to the body of Holocaust literature.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving and inspiring, June 3, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Jack and Rochelle: A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance (Paperback)

This is the story of Jack and Rochelle Sutin as told to their son, who, in turn, writes with great love and sensitivity about his parents' struggle to survive the Holocaust. Theirs is the account of a segment of the Holocaust I had known little about before I read this book: the Jewish Resistance. As the Nazis invaded Poland, established, and then emptied the ghettos, some Jews escaped to the forests, living in dirt caves, hiding from the Nazis, scratching out their survival from one day to the next, not knowing what had become of their families. By the end of the book, the reader is left with an incredible respect and affinity for those who cheated Hitler out of a handful of Jewish lives

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars compelling narrative of determined Holocaust resistance, May 13, 2003

By	Bruce J. Wasser (Lake Bluff, IL) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Jack and Rochelle: A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance (Hardcover)

Ably edited by their son Lawrence, the instructive and inspiring Holocaust narrative of Jack and Rochelle Sutin provides ample proof of both the degradation implicit in the Shoah and the astounding strength and courage Jewish partisans demonstrated in their battle against the attempted Nazi genocide. "Jack and Rochelle" is a deceptively easy book to read; the chapters consist of blended chronological testimonies; Lawrence Sutin honorably avoids imposing his own voice on his parents, instead allowing his mother and father to describe, in their own words, their own cadences, the horrors they faced and the gritty resolve they mustered to fight back. Rarely does a subtitle so accurately depict the contents of a memoir as does their own: "A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance."

Both Jack and Rochelle came from educated and enlightened eastern European Jewish families. As the two of them chronicle the onset of anti-Jewish depradations, they remind us of the rich texture of their pre-war lives. This dimension of humanity, of lives complicated by strained love relations, competitive urges and the deeply felt need for independence, makes the Nazi onslaught all the more unsettling and horrific.

Several themes predominate in the Sutins' braided lives. First is the omnipresence of Jew hatred, whether it be in pre or post war Poland, in the brutally repressive Soviet bureaucracy or the finely honed hatred of Nazi Germany. Indifferent neighbors, vicious anti-Jewish Russian partisans (who commit ghastly sexual offenses against women who want nothing more than to join them in battling a common enemy), and the active participants in human eradication, the Nazis, make the Sutins' world one of constant peril. Survival is never taken for granted, and Jack and Rochelle's descriptions of their physical torment, often undertated, is wrenching to read. Personal sacrifice exists on every level: physical, social and spiritual. Rochelle's first child dies within a day due to exposure when its survival imperils others; Jack is literally covered with pus-filled boils as a result of living outside the boundaries of human habitation.

Yet, neither Jack or Rochelle never complain, never give themselves away to self-pity. Instead, they are infused with the Judaic command to remember and Rochelle's mother's insistence on revenge, to take action to avenge the murder of their people. In this charged atmosphere of sanguine justice and physical erosion, amidst the rank and fetid habitat of primitive partisan surroundings, hope and love survive. Jack dreams that Rochelle will appear. She does. Despite sexual abuse and spiritual depletion, Rochelle gradually accepts and receives Jack's love. He has never stopped loving her.

"Jack and Rochelle" is above all a cry of victory. It is a cry that murder and eradication cannot conquer a people. It is a cry that memory and consecration to life will prevail over death. It is a cry that love can endure, even if it is formed in the absolute crucible of death.