Shtetl: The Life and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Relations between Jews and Poles were troubled even before World War II began, writes Eva Hoffman in this powerful memoir of life under Nazi occupation. Dealings between the groups were no easier with the arrival of a common enemy, who exploited longstanding anti-Semitism to destroy the inhabitants of both city and shtetl, the rural Eastern European small town that stood as "the site of the Jewish soul." This extraordinary account of cultures in conflict has led to much discussion--even controversy--in Europe. Hoffman's vigorously defended view of Poland's role in the Holocaust will doubtless generate debate elsewhere.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
The New York Times, Richard Bernstein
Ms. Hoffman's project is certainly worthy, and the book she has produced amply proves her point, that the history of the Poles and the Jews is morally complicated. The solidity of the argument does not rescue Shtetl (the word means small town in Yiddish) from dryness and abstraction. It is not an easy task to put flesh and blood into the history of a small, obscure place that produced no famous people or notable local chroniclers, and Ms. Hoffman, while dutifully recording what information she obtains, does not manage to surmount the limitations she faced. One feels at the end that Ms. Hoffman's historical lesson has been achieved, but for the feel of the shtetl, a sense of its richness and poverty, its eccentric threadbare piety, its truculence and struggle, Ms. Hoffman does not add a great deal to our knowledge.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Shtetl: The Life and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews
Shtetl: The Life and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews,Eva Hoffman,Mariner Books,0395924871,Braânsk,Eastern Europe - Poland,History,History - General History,History: World,Holocaust,Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945),Jewish - General,Jews,Poland
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