Ida Nasatir writings   List of honorees         Louis Rose Society         Jewishsightseeing home

Book Reviews  by Ida Nasatir

The Root and the Bow edited by Leo W. Schwartz;
We Survived as told to Eric H. Boehm

March 28, 1950—Ida Nasatir book reviews—The Root and the Bow edited by Leo W. Schwartz; We Survived as told to Eric H. Boehm—Southwestern Jewish Press, page 23 :These two books have recently come to my attention; I read them both and was deeply moved. These are grim stories of those who went through Nazi hell and managed to escape extinction. Leo W. Schwartz, who is well known for his anthologies of Jewish literature, has brought together a number of narratives by Jews, chiefly from eastern Europe, dealing with the Warsaw and Wilna ghettoes, the unbelievable horrors of the extermination camps, and the adventures of those who went into hiding These stories are for the most part simple, unaffected and artless. Their very simplicity gives them their strength. There are also brief narratives by children. The substance and the effect of the book We Survived is not dissimilar. The author retold the adventures of his fourteen acquaintances as he heard their stories in personal interviews. The fourteen include nine persons of Jewish birth (two of whom were Christians by religion) and five non-Aryans. The scene of their lives and their adventures is Germany itself. Neither one of these two books is pleasant reading; but the horror is softened and mitigated by the spirit of heroic determination that pervades these stories.  Here one finds much more than the mere animal instinct to survive; there is a faith in life, in humanity, and in many cases a deep faith in God that cannot fail to inspire those of us who have never been subjected to such terrible testing. The unmistakable recrudescence of Nazism in both Germany and Austria give these documents more than historical signficance. Inspiration they definitely are; but they are even more—they are also warning