Research Catalog

Memory fields

Title: Memory fields / Shlomo Breznitz.
Author: Breznitz, Shlomo.
Publication: New York : Knopf, 1993.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	DS135.C97 B74 1993	Off-site

Details

Description

x, 179 pages; 22 cm

Summary

Moving artfully and easily from past to present, from a child's perspective to an adult's, Shlomo Breznitz's many voices relate this poignant, gripping, and often terrifying memoir. Caught in Czechoslovakia during the Holocaust, Breznitz and his family moved from village to village until it became clear that there was no escaping the Nazis. Before they were sent to Auschwitz, however, Breznitz's parents persuaded the Sisters of Saint Vincent to take their two recently converted children into the convent's orphanage. Shlomo - called Juri - was just six years old. Separated from his parents and from his sister, Judith (the nuns segregated the sexes, and communication between them was rarely allowed), Juri recounts his often devastating experiences with the other orphans, the nuns, his teacher and classmates at the village school, the prelate and the mother superior, and the Nazi officers who periodically visited the orphanage. He describes his overwhelming feelings of isolation and loneliness, his persistent dread of being found out as a "stinking Jew" (constantly hiding his circumcision), his earnest determination to be a good Catholic, and the crushing sense of danger that loomed over him at every moment. Memory Fields, however, goes beyond its recollections of childhood. It speaks also for Breznitz the psychologist, as he explores the nature of cruelty and kindness, of stifling fear and outstanding courage, of memory and the ways in which it shapes our lives. In the last chapter of the book, almost fifty years later Breznitz returns to Czechoslovakia and revisits the places so vivid in his memory, in hopes of finding the nuns who saved his and his sister's life. A stunning and evocative story, beautifully told.

Uniform Title

Śedot ha-zikaron. English

Alternative Title

Śedot ha-zikaron.

Subject

Genre/Form

autobiographies (literary works)
Autobiographies
Personal narratives
Autobiographies.
Personal narratives.
Récits personnels.

ISBN

0679404031
9780679404033

LCCN

92017323

OCLC

ocm25874133
25874133
SCSB-1971187

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library