Fabiana Lopez ~ Life is a River
I remember I read an article about a woman and her husband who both survived the holocaust - they met afterward and moved to the US. I think it was their first Passover meal in their new home, they set the table for all their relatives who died and it was something like thirty place settings. Thirty empty place settings.
I try to picture thirty people I love and then I try to picture losing them all: my parents, my brother, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, my girlfriend, my friends, classmates, teachers... I just can't imagine what it would be to have to survive on my own. Especially not at age thirteen.
I've read about the Holocaust before in Elie Wiesel's Night and in Anne Frank's diary. I really loved Anne Frank's diary as a kid because I could relate to her - not in dealing with genocide or hiding in an attic, but having this little private world and using writing as a way to build that world or to process the world outside. Adolescence is such a chaotic time and Anne Frank's was exceptionally so.
I think about the book that one of the Lit Circles picked - A Long Way Gone and the idea of child soldiers, which is still occurring. There's another book, that I read, called Slave by Mende Nazer and she talks about being ripped away from her family as a girl and sold to a wealthy family in Sudan as a slave. These are stories of horrific violence, of abuse, and of the courage it takes to survive and begin to heal when the violence is over. These are the stories I think of when I think about Yanek.
Incidentally I also just remembered The Cage by Ruth Minsky Sender which is a story about a girl who survives the holocaust and a true, autobiographical account. It also starts when she's about thirteen so if you want to read a girl's perspective, that's a good one.
I also think of The Strain which has a character, Abraham Setrakian, who survived the holocaust and became a vampire hunter. There's another character, a Nazi commander, who calls him by his number "A230385." I know, it's a fictional series and one less grounded in reality than a novel like Prisoner B-3087. But it's a reference to the holocaust and I think Setrakian's story is compelling in a fictional, fantastical way and I appreciate a show that has a holocaust survivor as one of it's main characters.
I like this novel because while it's brutal, it does have precious moments of family and dignity in it. Yanek's father is determined for his son to have a Bar Mitzvah and I think it's so special. I love that scene because it's honestly beautiful. It's so barebones in terms of what they have available. Yanek talks about how there should be so much food and celebration. But it's these ten men, Yanek, and his father, standing silently in a circle at night and to me that just creates this sacred atmosphere, where they're stripped down to faith.
My favorite quote is what Yanek's father says: "Remember what the Talmud teaches: Life is but a river, it has no beginning, no middle, no end. All we are, all we are worth is what we do while we float upon it - how we treat our fellow man" (Gratz, 44). I was just awed at this beautiful scene and it's etched in my mind. I think that's the power of a book like this; it stays with you. It reminded me of an article I read once where a Rabbi was explaining the Jewish perspective of the holocaust in a religious sense - that life has no beginning or end, that life on Earth is only one part of life, and that suffering is only part of a soul's experience. I think about faith and I think about it's power to comfort, to inspire. I don't really believe in a God, but I think that is a beautiful thing. And I think that this scene could mean a lot to a student, regardless of their religious belief or lack thereof - the power of believing that there is more to life than suffering and death.
I try to picture thirty people I love and then I try to picture losing them all: my parents, my brother, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, my girlfriend, my friends, classmates, teachers... I just can't imagine what it would be to have to survive on my own. Especially not at age thirteen.
I've read about the Holocaust before in Elie Wiesel's Night and in Anne Frank's diary. I really loved Anne Frank's diary as a kid because I could relate to her - not in dealing with genocide or hiding in an attic, but having this little private world and using writing as a way to build that world or to process the world outside. Adolescence is such a chaotic time and Anne Frank's was exceptionally so.
I think about the book that one of the Lit Circles picked - A Long Way Gone and the idea of child soldiers, which is still occurring. There's another book, that I read, called Slave by Mende Nazer and she talks about being ripped away from her family as a girl and sold to a wealthy family in Sudan as a slave. These are stories of horrific violence, of abuse, and of the courage it takes to survive and begin to heal when the violence is over. These are the stories I think of when I think about Yanek.
Incidentally I also just remembered The Cage by Ruth Minsky Sender which is a story about a girl who survives the holocaust and a true, autobiographical account. It also starts when she's about thirteen so if you want to read a girl's perspective, that's a good one.
I also think of The Strain which has a character, Abraham Setrakian, who survived the holocaust and became a vampire hunter. There's another character, a Nazi commander, who calls him by his number "A230385." I know, it's a fictional series and one less grounded in reality than a novel like Prisoner B-3087. But it's a reference to the holocaust and I think Setrakian's story is compelling in a fictional, fantastical way and I appreciate a show that has a holocaust survivor as one of it's main characters.
I like this novel because while it's brutal, it does have precious moments of family and dignity in it. Yanek's father is determined for his son to have a Bar Mitzvah and I think it's so special. I love that scene because it's honestly beautiful. It's so barebones in terms of what they have available. Yanek talks about how there should be so much food and celebration. But it's these ten men, Yanek, and his father, standing silently in a circle at night and to me that just creates this sacred atmosphere, where they're stripped down to faith.
My favorite quote is what Yanek's father says: "Remember what the Talmud teaches: Life is but a river, it has no beginning, no middle, no end. All we are, all we are worth is what we do while we float upon it - how we treat our fellow man" (Gratz, 44). I was just awed at this beautiful scene and it's etched in my mind. I think that's the power of a book like this; it stays with you. It reminded me of an article I read once where a Rabbi was explaining the Jewish perspective of the holocaust in a religious sense - that life has no beginning or end, that life on Earth is only one part of life, and that suffering is only part of a soul's experience. I think about faith and I think about it's power to comfort, to inspire. I don't really believe in a God, but I think that is a beautiful thing. And I think that this scene could mean a lot to a student, regardless of their religious belief or lack thereof - the power of believing that there is more to life than suffering and death.
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