Rating: 
Summary: Heartrending and Captivating
Review: Two truths seem to surface when studying the Holocaust. The first truth is overt. It deals with the depravity of humanity, the ability of people to create evil and the willingness of human beings to inflict that wicked creation onto others. The second truth students need to search for in order to find. It is a response to the first truth. It is the human potential for dignity that people can perform in the face of evil. In the case of the Holocaust, the enormity of the event makes these truths poignantly apparent.The first truth instills anger, depression and cynacism in students, emotions that do not always lead to constructive thoughts or actions. On the other hand, the second truth inspires. Like the first truth, it forces students to remember the Holocaust and to look at the wanton human cruelty, racism, destruction, murder, and genocide surrounding the event. The second truth also teaches a positive attitude worth emulating. Anne Frank, in her classic diary, innocently and vividly articulates this truth when she writes "despite everything, I still believe the world is good." Alicia Appleman Jurman, in her autobiography Alicia: My Story writes of her experience as a teenage Jewish girl fleeing the Nazis by hiding out in the back forests and wheat fields of rural Poland. In her account as a survivor of the Holocaust and as a witness to the destruction of European Jewry, Appleman-Jurman demonstrates a physical defiance and an active heroism which inspires the reader long after he or she has read the last page. In addition, Appleman-Jurman manages to show faith in human goodness(even after she witnesses the brutal murder of her mother) when she describes the actions of individuals who elevate themselves above the pervasive depravity of their environment and time. A generation after Hitler and the Nazi State attempted to commit genocide and annihilate the Jewish people, much attention has been focused on the Holocuast. Historians are doing research. Artists are creating depictions. Authors are writing literature. Grand museums and monuments have been built. Rituals and liturgy are being written and observed. In analyzing these acts of remembrance, the message being portrayed about the Holocuast is not always clear. Appleman Jurman's memoir does not provide conclusive answers to this most difficult question. In her account of the horrors, however, the example of her active heroism and faith in humanity helps students focus their attention in a constructive and positive direction, a direction that enables students to search for honest answers while maintaining a semblance of a healthy outlook on the world in which we live. For that lesseon, this teacher and student of the Holocaust is eternally grateful. Elliot Fein teaches Jewish religious studies at the Tarbut V'Torah School in irvine, California.
Rating:
Summary: amazing book
Review: With her keen memory and talented writing, we are filled with terror and admiration in this highly detailed account of the author's tragic experiences. Well worth the read, we can only wonder if WE could be as strong in the face of such adversity, and after it was all over, could go on to build a new life without one's family as Alicia did. I have read many Holocaust biographies but this is one of the finest.
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