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Book Reviews by Ida Nasatir
The Root and the Bow edited by Leo W. Schwartz;
We Survived as told to Eric H. Boehm
March 28, 1950—Ida Nasatir book reviews—The
Root and the Bow edited by Leo
W. Schwartz; We Survived as told to Eric
H. Boehm—Southwestern Jewish Press, page 23 :These
two books have recently come to my attention; I read them both and was deeply
moved. These are grim stories of those who went through Nazi hell and managed to
escape extinction. Leo W. Schwartz, who is well known for his anthologies of
Jewish literature, has brought together a number of narratives by Jews, chiefly
from eastern Europe, dealing with the Warsaw and Wilna ghettoes, the
unbelievable horrors of the extermination camps, and the adventures of those who
went into hiding These stories are for the most part simple, unaffected and
artless. Their very simplicity gives them their strength. There are also brief
narratives by children. The substance and the effect of the book We Survived
is not dissimilar. The author retold the adventures of his fourteen
acquaintances as he heard their stories in personal interviews. The
fourteen include nine persons of Jewish birth (two of whom were Christians by
religion) and five non-Aryans. The scene of their lives and their adventures is
Germany itself. Neither one of these two books is pleasant reading; but the
horror is softened and mitigated by the spirit of heroic determination that
pervades these stories. Here one finds much more than the mere animal
instinct to survive; there is a faith in life, in humanity, and in many cases a
deep faith in God that cannot fail to inspire those of us who have never been
subjected to such terrible testing. The unmistakable recrudescence of Nazism in
both Germany and Austria give these documents more than historical signficance.
Inspiration they definitely are; but they are even more—they are also warning