Escape from the Ghetto: A Story of Survival and Resilience in World War II (Pegasus), by John Carr

Expand

Escape from the Ghetto by John Carr

Many survivors of World War II were hesitant to open up about their stories, even to those people closest to them. How much more difficult for Holocaust survivorsto recall their experiences? Chaim Herszman escaped Nazi Europe and made for Great Britain, where he renamed himself Henry Carr. In later years, his son John wrote down and taped their conversations about life in Poland before the war and the events he survived once the war began. According to the author’s introduction, he shaped the material only as much as necessary to keep the narrative flowing. Escape from the Ghetto could make a good screenplay.

The Jews of Poland were subjected to routine and sometimes aggressive discrimination during Herszman’s childhood. He had the advantages of blond hair and blue eyes. In public he easily passed for Polish, German even, and had a gift for learning languages. After the Nazis came and rounded up his family, Herszman escaped, killing a guard outside the Lodz ghetto where the city’s Jews were confined in terrible conditions. He made his way across occupied Europe and eventually to freedom. He was only 13.

Aside from the resourcefulness of the protagonist, Escape from the Ghetto is a remarkable account of the unpredictable, random violence of the Nazis in Poland. Carr makes clear that although the Jews bore the heaviest burden, the Nazis imprisoned, enslaved or killed many Poles. The generation that experienced those events has largely passed and the generation of their children is passing, too. Before long, there will be no more eyewitness accounts.