 Wonderful Book, great amazon service.
I had this book along time ago, and gave it to someone to borrow, and never got it back...I was looking around on the internet to purchase it from a bookstore since I could not find it locally. I found the best price for it on Amazon, and was exstatic! I recieved it in the condition stated by the seller in a timely manner and the transaction itself was smooth. I felt that if I needed to contact the seller for any reason, it would have been a wonderful experience anyway! Thank you, and I will continue to shop with Amazon!
A book that is richly-detailed and gives compelling insights into a lost world
Yaffa Eliach's "There Once Was a World: A 900-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok" is a compelling book of a lost world -the Jews of Eishyshok who were mostly murdered in massacres carried out by the Nazis and their collaborators between Sep 25-26th, 1941. In this book, Eliach documents the richness of Jewish life in Eishyshok, Lithuania - the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, their unique way of life, providing intimate glimpses into a vanished world that no longer exists after the Holocaust.
The book reads a lot like a novel, and I was so absorbed that I finished the book in less than three days. There are numerous photographs throughout this book, and it is amazing that a lot of them depict people who had either perished during the Holocaust or survived. It shows the great amount of effort that must have gone into compiling all the information to trace the fates of most of the people pictured in this book. It is heartrending to read the stories in here, and yet it made me realise how very important this work is - it stands as a testament to the rich Jewish culture that flourished for 900 years in Eishyshok, and of the decimation of that very culture at the hands of monsters. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the Holocaust.
Polish and Lithuanian denials
I feel renewed horror that, to this day, Polish and Lithuanian reviewers use this format to try to deny their participation in the murder of the Jews who lived in Eishyshok and all over Poland.. even blame the victims. They murdered Jews, stole their property, and beat, murdered, and intimidated Jews who survived the holocaust and tried to return to their homes, tried to reclaim any small portion of their property. I am disgusted by the cowardliness of those naysayers and blamers who try to pass their crimes off onto the victims even to this day, further abusing people that they killed or helped kill and who are unable to defend themselves.
a lost world that lives in the soul of all jews...
In her very detailed and extensive account of life in a jewish market town of Eastern Europe, the author gives a vivid glimpse of the daily life, emotions and longings of its members. A real interesting book that transports us to the middle of a vibrant community that lived, cried, and smiled during all their history until the bitter end.A must read for anyone intereste in the jewish culture and it's ethos.
An important and moving book.
This meticulously researched book chronicles the 900-year-old settlement of Eishyshok, a center of culture and tradition that was virtually extinguished by the Holocaust. Rather than focus on the terrible end, the author has endeavored to revive the town and its inhabitants through salvaged photographs, narratives, and history gathered over many years of travel and research. The author has produced a moving and well documented book that serves history while respecting and memorializing the individual people who gave the town its spirit. I have to doubt the motives of those who are using this review space to disect the author's own life and memories, which are not the subject of this book.
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