Tango Of Death A True Story Of Holocaust Survivors

Mikhail Baranovskiy weaves a remarkably poignant story of loyalty, betrayal, honor, hope, love, and the effects of enforced mediocrity on talent, based on true events from World War II. Vienna, Austria, 1932. A violin virtuoso and musical genius, Jacob Mund's quick ascent to conducting the Vienna Philharmonic isn't too surprising. With a successful career, adoration and praise from all corners, and a beautiful fiancee, Mund has everything going for him - but that soon changes. With German occupation leading to the total ban of Jewish composers in Vienna, Mund accepts an offer from the Lwow Orchestra and relocates with his now-pregnant wife, Sophia, and a talented musician and close friend, Shmulik. But misfortune catches up with them. Mund's happy days in Lwow (Poland, today Lviv, Ukraine), come to an abrupt and unfortunate end when the Germans take over. His Jewish parents are robbed and shot on the streets, and he is shipped off to the Janowska concentration camp along with his wife, his daughter, and the other Lwow musicians. By a lucky twist of fate and with the help of an unexpected ally, his daughter Shera and his friend Shmulik escape the hell of the concentration camp, allowing them a chance to begin life anew. Mund is not so fortunate. Baranovskiy weaves an incredibly powerful and haunting tale that captures the horrors of Jewish persecution at the height of the World War II. If you enjoyed Born Survivors, The Lost and All But My Life, then you need to get your hands on this literary masterpiece. A famous writer, playwright, and screenwriter, Mikhail Baranovskiy has been recognized with many literary awards and has authored various children and adult books, as well as numerous television series, including Volkov's Hour, Girls, The Sisters Korolev, and Antique Dealer. Scroll to the top of the page and click the "Buy Now" button to get a copy today!

This book traces the origins of the legend that Jewish musicians in concentration camps were forced to play a Tango of Death at the gas chambers and shows how in this legend the actual history is hidden, distorted, or even lost altogether.

A comprehensive survey of the most important writing to come out of the Holocaust. Writing in Witness is a broad survey of the most important writing about the Holocaust produced by eyewitnesses at the time and soon after. Whether they intended to spark resistance and undermine Nazi authority, to comfort family and community, to beseech God, or to leave a memorial record for posterity, the writers reflect on the power and limitations of the written word in the face of events often thought to be beyond representation. The diaries, journals, letters, poems, and other works were created across a geography reaching from the Baltics to the Balkans, from the Atlantic coast to the heart of the Soviet Union, and in a wide array of original languages. Along with the readings, Eric J. Sundquist’s introductions provide a comprehensive account of the Holocaust as a historical event. Including works by prominent authors such as Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel as well as those little known or anonymous, Writing in Witness provides, in vital and memorable examples, a wide-ranging account of the Holocaust by those who felt the imperative to give written testimony. “Written in every European language, in every conceivable manner, and from every point on the Holocaust compass—prisons, ghettos, transports, concentration and labor camps, killing fields, bunkers, makeshift shelters, camps for displaced persons—these diary entries, letters, testimonies, eyewitness accounts, poems, stories, sermons, and inscriptions demand that they be heard. Written by Jewish men, women, and children; by Christian bystanders; and yes, even by two German perpetrators, they depict the living nightmare as it unfolds. Six nightmare years and their aftermath are rendered in a language that defies the limits of language; an inescapable present that eclipses the past and cries out to an unattainable future. In the beginning was the Holocaust, and this is its story as told by its original responders.” — David G. Roskies, author of Holocaust Literature: A History and Guide “Writing in Witness is a devastatingly and deeply honest work of testimony by those whose worlds were shattered by the catastrophic rupture of the Holocaust. It is also, and primarily, a testament to the strength and courage of those who experienced the atrocities of Nazism and who felt compelled to write about those events in clear, unsparing language. Eric Sundquist, editor of this important collection, provides a sensitive selection of primary texts by men and women who witnessed the machinery and implementation of genocide. In his thoughtful and knowledgeable introduction, Sundquist establishes the framework for the ethical engagement of reader and eyewitness in the calculation of enormous loss. The various genres of witnessing included in this collection—diaries, poems, memoirs, letters, records—evoke in their clarity ancient forms of lamentation and Midrash, giving voice to memory. With judiciously interpretive preliminary material introducing each section, Sundquist lets the witnesses speak for themselves. No course on Holocaust literature or history should be without this anthology.” — Victoria Aarons, editor of Third-Generation Holocaust Narratives: Memory in Memoir and Fiction “This wide-ranging and affecting collection of firsthand accounts of the Holocaust, each expertly chosen and deftly introduced and contextualized, will be ideal for teaching purposes and indispensable to anyone intent on recovering a sense of what the horror felt like. Eric Sundquist has assembled an extraordinarily illuminating and powerful book.” — Peter Hayes, Theodore Zev Weiss Holocaust Educational Foundation Professor Emeritus, Northwestern University “Writing in Witness is a rich assortment of written accounts of diverse aspects of the experience of the Holocaust that are skillfully chosen and masterfully introduced and contextualized. What emerges from an overarching reading of these collective texts is a sense of how the actors who experienced or witnessed the events of the Holocaust registered them in language and through the sometimes immediate, sometimes reflective process of writing.” — Erin McGlothlin, author of Second-Generation Holocaust Literature: Legacies of Survival and Perpetration

“Mesmerizing and inspirational.”—Judy Batalion, New York Times bestselling author of The Light of Days The incredible true story of two Holocaust survivors who fell in love in Auschwitz, only to be separated upon liberation and lead remarkable lives apart following the war—and then find each other again more than 70 years later. Zippi Spitzer and David Wisnia were captivated by each other from the moment they first exchanged glances across the work floor. It was the beginning of a love story that could have happened anywhere. Except for one difference: this romance was unfolding in history’s most notorious death camp, between two young prisoners whose budding intimacy risked dooming them if they were caught. Incredibly, David and Zippi survived for years beneath the ash-choked skies of Auschwitz. Under the protection of their fellow inmates, their romance grew and deepened, even as their brushes with death mounted and David’s luck in particular seemed close to running out. As the war’s end finally approached and the time came for them to leave the camp, David and Zippi made plans to meet again. But neither of them could imagine how long their reunion would take or how many lives they would live in the interim. They had no inkling, either, of the betrayals that would await them along the way. But David did suspect that Zippi harbored a secret—one that could explain the mystery of his survival all those years ago. An unbelievable tale of romance, sacrifice, loss, and resilience, Lovers in Auschwitz is a saga of two young people who found themselves trapped inside a waking nightmare of the Nazis’ creation, yet who nevertheless discovered a love that sustained them through history’s darkest hour.

Memoirs of ten Holocaust survivors: Itzchok Gochman, Halina Zemanska Laster, Yechiel M. Strohly, Harry Parzen, Ruth Josovitz Rosenblum, Rose Milder, Leon Faigenbam, Abraham Mahler, Selig Schwitzer, and Eva Cherniak Biber. They came from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, and Ukraine, and are now members of a Survivors Group in Pembroke Pines, Florida. They relate their experiences in various ghettos, labor camps, and concentration camps.

Even seventy-five years after the end of World War II, the commemorative cultures surrounding the War and the Holocaust in Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe are anything but fixed. The fierce debates on how to deal with the past among the newly constituted nation states in these regions have already received much attention by scholars in cultural and memory studies. The present volume posits that literature as a medium can help us understand the shifting attitudes towards World War II and the Holocaust in post-Communist Europe in recent years. These shifts point to new commemorative cultures shaping up ‘after memory’. Contemporary literary representations of World War II and the Holocaust in Eastern Europe do not merely extend or replace older practices of remembrance and testimony, but reflect on these now defunct or superseded narratives. New narratives of remembrance are conditioned by a fundamentally new social and political context, one that emerged from the devaluation of socialist commemorative rituals and as a response to the loss of private and family memory narratives. The volume offers insights into the diverse literatures of Eastern Europe and their ways of depicting the area’s contested heritage.

"This is a beautifully written, insightful chronicle of a young girl's Holocaust survival. Though very private and personal, it nevertheless captures the common torments of children living through this disastrous civilizational breakdown. What makes this book unique is that the author pulls the reader into the story. We get to know her parents and other memorable characters for the kind of people they were. There is an immediacy in the writing that almost makes the reader a participant in the daily struggles to keep alive. We get an honest look at the relationships between men and women on the edge of annihilation and how children coped with these unusual alliances. This emotionally powerful yet intellectually lucid work stands out within the Holocaust literature. Students and others will greatly benefit as the author guides the reader, setting forth the political and historical context in which the action unfolds." --Stefanie Seltzer, President of the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the Holocaust "The story of the relentless hunt of a Jewish child in Nazi Europe haunts the reader long after the last page has been turned... This gripping memoir illuminates the fearsome experiences of a Holocaust child survivor with the intelligence and wisdom of an adult's retrospection." --Henryk Grynberg, Author of The Jewish Wars and The Victory, Children of Zion, and Drohobycz, Drohobycz: True Tales from the Holocaust and Life After.