The Gurs Haggadah: Passover in Perdition

Rating:
Summary: Enhanced with a profusion of historical photographs
Review: In 1941, the Jewish prisoners held for deporation and eventual execution by the Nazis in the southwestern French Gurs Detention Camp decided to hold a Seder on Pasover (the Jewish "Holiday of Freedom") in order to assert their own inner sense of freedom from the terror of horrific oppression. Collaboratively compiled and edited by Bella Gutterman (Director of Publications for Yad Vashem - the oldest Holocaust Museum in the world), with the material assistance of Naomi Morgenstern, The Gurs Haggadah: Passover In Perdition recounts this remarkable event which served to reawaken the national pride which the Nazis and their Vichy allies had sought to obliterate. Enhanced with a profusion of historical photographs, and featuring a facsimile of the actual Haggaddah recreated from memory and used in the camp, The Gurs Haggadah is a welcome and seminally important contribution to the growing library of Holocaust Studies.