Bitter Freedom: Memoirs of a Holocaust Survivor
Jafa Wallach s Bitter Freedom: Memoir of a Holocaust Survivor tell the powerful story of her own survival in hiding clandestinely in a an hastily dug underground hideout. Written but not published well before survivor began to tell their stories, Wallach depicts the decency of her Polish rescuer, seemingly an ordinary mechanic who works with the Polish and provides for the Jews who has daringly chosen to hide without telling his wife and his family. Wallach also describes the anguished decision to give her four year old daughter away to live in the woods and the struggles of her daughter to live in harsh rural conditions and the joyful reunion that follows liberation. We read of betrayal and indifference, of antisemitism and exploitation but also of ordinary decency in the most extraordinary of times when the difference between life and death was a loaf of bread and a place of shelter. Read Wallach s compelling narrative and you will learn of the evil that tarnishes the human spirit but also of the nobility of that spirit. Nobody who went through these events remained unchanged and no one who read of these events should remain unchanged. Compelling reading, powerful indeed. --Michael Berenbaum, Professor of Jewish Studies, American Jewish University, Los Angles, CAA new voice offers a riveting personal account of what life was like for a Polish Jew during the Holocaust. In Bitter Freedom: Memoir of a Holocaust Survivor, Jafa Wallach tells her remarkable first-person story of survival in Nazi-occupied Poland. Narrowly escaping the Nazi sweep in Southern Poland, Jafa and her husband, Natan, a physician, were able to send their four-year-old daughter, Rena, to safety (they hoped) while they themselves along with two of Jafa s brothers managed to dig a shallow hole in the ground beneath the cellar of a sympathetic Polish mechanic s shop. The four adults managed to survive for 22 agonizingly long months in the grave-like space (around five feet long by four and a half wide andabout four feet high) with the help of JÃƒÂ³zef Zwonarz, the town s mechanic. He alone knew of their hiding space and he alone had to secretly supply them with whatever food and water he could manage to sneak to them (mainly old potatoes and very small amounts of water). Wallach graphically describes the darkness, the hunger, the insects, and the constant fear of discovery. They had to be especially quiet since the hole they were in was located less than twenty feet from a Gestapo headquarters, the Ukrainian Militia and the German Police in the small town of Lesko. In addition, Zwonarz and his workers were fixing Nazi vehicles on a daily basis and the Nazis were constantly in and around the building. Wallach s story recounts their terror when they realized they had to flee from their crumbling hole to a new hiding place. She then hauntingly describes their new struggles up until the liberation by Russian troops on September 15, 1944. Jafa then touchingly relates her reunion with Rena, thankfully still alive. (Rena is the sole surviving Jewish child from the Sanok/Lesko region of Galicia from WWII.) Jafa, Natan and Rena then struggled to leave the country....ultimately making it to the United States in May 1947. In the book s Afterword, written by Jafa s daughter, we learn about the war years from Rena s point of view and then about the family s life after the war. One sad part was that Natan suffered a debilitating accident in 1976 and lost his eyesight. Jafa handled the situation with her usual resolve and devotion. He died in 1995 at the age of 90. The manuscript for this book was written by Jafa not long after World War II ended and was put aside as a personal memoir. Rena and others convinced Jafa to let it be published. A limited edition was released in 2006. Jafa died in August 2011 at the age of 101 knowing of the plans to publ --Clark s E --Clark s Eye on Books, Clark IssacsBitter Freedom is a recipient of the prestigious Mom's Choice Award. The Mom s Choice Awards honors excellence in family-friendly media, products and services. An esteemed panel of judges includes education, media and other experts as well as parents, children, librarians, performing artists, producers, medical and business professionals, authors, scientists and others. A sampling of the panel members includes: Dr. Twila C. Liggett, Eleven-time Emmy-winner, professor and founder of Reading Rainbow ; Julie Aigner-Clark, Creator of Baby Einstein and The Safe Side Project; Jodee Blanco, New York Times Best-Selling Author; and LeAnn Thieman, Motivational speaker and coauthor of seven Chicken Soup For The Soul books. Parents, educators, retailers and the media look for the Mom s Choice Awards seal when selecting quality materials and products for children and families. --Mom's Choice AwardsBitter Freedom Memoir of a Holocaust Survivor By Jafa Wallach --Clark s Eye on Books, Clark Issacs--This text refers to an alternatePaperbackedition.