Bashert: A Granddaughterâ€™s Holocaust Quest (Willie Morris Books in Memoir and Biography)
Based on interviews, memoirs, historical accounts, archival documents, and family anecdotes, Simon undertook what she describes as a "spiritual search" for her family members killed in the Holocaust. Obsessed by her grandmother's tales of life in the village of Volchin (in what is now Belarus), Simon visited there during a trip to Poland, Belarus, and Russia in 1997. She learned that in 1942, all 395 Jews remaining in Volchin were murdered by two Nazis with the help of the non-Jewish villagers. She learned, too, that 50,000 Jews were killed and buried in eight mass graves in Brona Gora, a forest between Brest and Minsk, from June to November 1942. The author concludes from her research that her relatives were murdered on September 22, 1942, in Volchin, killed "for one reason only--because they were Jewish." Bashert is the Yiddish word for fate. In her quest for the truth, Simon has written a loving eulogy to her lost family.George CohenCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved