Amidst the Shadows of Trees
Beautifully told and evoking every detail of a child survivor s experiences of the Shoah, the horrors she witnessed, the losses she experienced, the hardships and heartbreaks she survived, this story is a rare example of a girl who, disguised as a boy, lived with the partisans in the Lipiczany Forest after escaping from the wholesale slaughter of the Lida ghetto inmates. Her authentic testimony, her total recall of every event, every emotion belie the assumption held by some that the testimony of young children cannot be trusted, because they were too young to remember. We are given insights into Miriam s relationship with her parents, their loving protection during times of incredible hardship, but also their human frailties and failures in the years of exile. Finally the story also covers the postwar, post-Holocaust years and the amazing strength and ambition with which Miriam created her own career and built a loving family relationship in the New World. We are treated to samples of Miriam s poetry and art in addition to her unique, unforgettable memoir. Surely this book deserves a place among the many Holocaust accounts on your library shelf. --~ Susanne M. Batzdorff, Librarian, retiredAs if to rescue the integrity of the history of the Holocaust, a wave of survivor memoirs, many literate and engaging, have appeared over the last ten years. They announce that the logical and important places to begin to examine that history are eye witnesses. Miriam Brysk s chronicle is among the more exceptional of these works. It reflects her own life: highly accomplished, intelligent, detailed and thoughtful. At age seven, Miriam, her mother Bronka and father, Chaim Miasnik, a renowned surgeon, escaped the Lida ghetto and joined Jewish partisans in the Lipiczany Forest. Before the end of the war, Miriam estimates that her father had saved hundreds of lives and helped build and supervise a partisan hospital in the swamps of the forest. Constantly hunted by German soldiers, she experienced childhood terror that has remained with her. She lost her innocence, her childhood, her youth as she clung to her mother and her prized possession, a pistol. Her head was shaved so she would look like a boy. Her memory of the details of that time both in the Lida ghetto and in the forest remains remarkably sharp and distinguishes this memoir from many others. --Sidney BolkoskyMiriam Brysk s story of ghetto life in Lida in Belarus and partisan life in the nearby Lipiczany forest sheds light on Jewish activism during the Nazi Holocaust. It also tells the story of a lost childhood and of challenging years spent disguised as a partisan boy accompanying her father and mother in the resistance. Dr. Chaim Miasnik. Miriam s father, was chief of staff and lead surgeon in a forest hospital and later received the Order of Lenin for his work with partisans. Miriam and her family survived until liberation and later came to the U.S. and constructed normal lives. Miriam herself became an accomplished scientist. This book sheds light on Jewish participation in resistance during the World War II and in saving other Jews. It is also a testament to the resilient powers of youth and to the power of survivor memory many years after the events. --Kenneth Waltzer