QUEST FOR ETERNAL SUNSHINE

A Holocaust survivor’s memoir recounts his attempts to free himself from haunting grief.

Rubin (I Am Small, I Am Big, 1995, etc.) was born into a large Jewish family in Jaworzno, a small and “somber town” in Poland, in 1924. He experienced humiliation and isolation due to the prevailing anti-Semitism of his time and place; due to his dyslexia, school was “torture,” and scholastic success proved elusive. His academic failure, particularly when it came to his Judaic studies, provoked his father’s unrelenting disapproval. The situation in Jaworzno drastically worsened after Hitler came to power, and when, in 1939, Germany invaded Poland, the town was among the first to be occupied. The author was forced to work in a coal mine before he was sent, in 1942, to a concentration camp at the age of 17. He became a self-described “survival machine” and made it through the ordeal, but many members of his family didn’t, and he and his surviving sister, Bronia, were crushed by guilt and despair. “Neither of us knew how to move on. We had nothing to look forward to, just anguish and devastation to run away from. Although we’d survived, living without a home or family in a world full of unfathomable cruelty did not feel at all like a triumph.” Rubin’s achingly poignant recollection is lovingly edited by his co-author daughter, Goodman (Straight From the Earth, 2014, etc.), who supplements his writing with her own research, including interviews with the family. Rubin vividly chronicles his heroic effort “to break free from the psychological prison I’d lived in since I was a child in a little town in Poland” and find some measure of peace, and even joy. His prose is as lucid as it is candidly confessional, and his refusal to simply succumb to self-pity is inspiring. There is, of course, no shortage of Holocaust memoirs, and readers will find that this one covers familiar ground. However, the author travels this territory with grace and intelligence, making his contribution both moving and edifying.

A heartbreaking story of survival and emotional resilience.