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Jews in the Garden: A Holocaust Survivor, the Fate of His Family, and the Secret History of Poland in World War II
" Jews in the Garden reads like the best of narrator-guided murder-mysteries. But in this case the who-done-it is real, chilling, and makes clear why today's Polish government is so determined to keep its bloody Holocaust-era secrets." ―Larry Tye, New York Times bestselling author A shocking true story of untold World War II secrets 1944: Heavy footfalls thud on the road on a rainy May night. A band of gunmen scour a hilltop farm, acting on rumors that it harbors a Jewish family. For 18 months, the Rozeneks have been hiding safely, but their luck is about to run out. Only one from the family of six will live to see the sunrise. Sixteen-year-old Hena Rozenek shelters in the woods until morning… and then she runs. Forty years Holocaust survivor Sam Rakowski Ron has lived in the United States for decades, never thinking he could return to the Polish village he fled as a teenager. But now he's ready to talk about what he heard, what he saw, and what he knows about two separate families of cousins who were his neighbors, and presumably were killed during the war. The story Poland presents to the world is that Poles saved more Jews than citizens of any other nation, that any murders in Poland were committed by Nazis and Nazis alone. But Sam, while defending his countrymen, suspects a painful truth. The stories he shares with his younger cousin, Judy, an investigative journalist, send them off on a decades-long journey unlike any other to find out what happened to the Rozenek family and ultimately reveal the secrets the Polish government is still desperate to keep. Jews in the Garden is a globe-trotting detective story that turns investigative eyes and ears toward the hidden events in Poland during the Holocaust. Judy and Sam, the unlikeliest of sleuthing duos, knock on doors, petition court documents, seek clandestine meetings, and ultimately discover what really happened to the "Jews in the garden next door." "An intriguing look into a little-understood and largely unrecognized part of Holocaust history." ―Kirkus Reviews
384 pages, Paperback
Published July 11, 2023
About the author
Judy Rakowsky
6 books23 followersJudy Rakowsky has spent decades knocking on strangers' doors and making cold calls as a journalist, trying to answer the age old question of crime reporting: how could they? As a reporter and editor, she spent three decades in an award-winning career that took her to five metropolitan dailies including the Boston Globe, the Providence Journal as well as People Magazine. For vacation, she journeyed repeatedly to the native land of cousin Sam, who survived four Nazi camps and a death march, on a quest to find a living survivor. She learned from his optimism and resilience and they discovered truths about the fate of relatives that the Polish government has made illegal to tell.
When she's not on deadline, she would prefer to be in or under water (swimming or Scuba diving) or protecting precious blooms from ravenous bunnies in her garden.
When she's not on deadline, she would prefer to be in or under water (swimming or Scuba diving) or protecting precious blooms from ravenous bunnies in her garden.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 97 reviews
July 20, 2023
Jews in the Garden:A Holocaust Survivor, the Fate of His Family, and the Secret History of Poland in World War II by Judy Rakowsky was a true and very inspirational story. When Judy reconnected with Sam, her father’s cousin and Holocaust survivor, her life as an investigative journalist was about to take her on a path she never imagined she would go on. Sam had found a home in the United States but his memories of his homeland and family who perished in the Holocaust were always in his thoughts. He often recalled stories of his youth in Poland and shared them with his family members. Sam was troubled and haunted by the fate of his cousins who remained in Poland during World War II and the Holocaust. Over the course of ten years Sam travelled back and forth between Poland and the United States to uncover the truth about what happened to his cousins. Judy, in the role of investigative journalist and Sam’s companion, became totally invested in his quest to uncover the truth and even carried on without Sam’s physical presence for years after.
In 1944, some of Sam’s cousins had been hidden for the last eighteen months by some very humane and sympathetic Polish neighbors and friends until they were brutally murdered not by Nazis but by Poles. The daughter, then sixteen years old, witnessed the murder of her entire family but managed to survive. It was baffling to Sam that the surviving daughter never tried to make contact with other family members that had survived the Holocaust. What happened to her? It seemed like she just vanished. Her fate became an obsession for Sam. For the next ten years Sam traveled back and forth to Poland accompanied by Judy in search of information that would lead them to this surviving cousin. When Sam became too old to travel, Judy and her husband continued the search.
In addition to trying to uncover the fate of Sam’s cousins, Sam and Judy were intent in finding those Poles who had tried to hide his cousins during the war. They wanted to thank them for their bravery, kindness, compassion and generosity. It was during these conversations, that Sam and Judy were able to discover and then expose and document the many crimes the Polish people and its government committed during this time. The Polish government had always preached to the world how as a country they had saved more Jews than other country during the years of the occupation and the Holocaust. As much as Sam still loved his beloved Poland, he knew that those statements were false. The Polish government, still to this day, continues to deny what others have uncovered about their role in murdering Jews during the Holocaust. This was a very dark side of history for the Polish people, one that they have desperately tried to hide from the world. Sam and Judy worked diligently to expose these crimes and tried their best to make the Polish government admit that these crimes and murders did take place at the hands of the Polish people.
Jews in the Garden: A Holocaust Survivor, the Fate of His Family, and the Secret History of Poland in World War II by Judy Rakowsky was a memoir that revealed the fates of Sam’s cousins and a very dark side of Poland’s history over the course of World War II and the Holocaust. Unfortunately, most survivors of the Holocaust are no longer alive to tell their stories. This book gave me hope that family members like Judy Rakowsky, that belong to the younger generation of Holocaust survivors, will keep the memories, ordeals and atrocities their loved ones suffered alive so that the Holocaust will never be forgotten or repeated. It is important to recognize that the Nazis were not the only ones who were evil enough and capable of committing such atrocities to the Jews that resided in Poland during the Holocaust. This is not something that the Polish government can just sweep under a rug or close their eyes to. I am grateful to Judy Rakowsky for sharing Sam’s story and discoveries in this book. Together they were able to document facts that were hidden and denied by the Poland government for decades. I highly recommend this book.
Thank you to Sourcebooks for allowing me to read Jews in the Garden:A Holocaust Survivor, the Fate of His Family, and the Secret History of Poland in World War II by Judy Rakowsky through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
In 1944, some of Sam’s cousins had been hidden for the last eighteen months by some very humane and sympathetic Polish neighbors and friends until they were brutally murdered not by Nazis but by Poles. The daughter, then sixteen years old, witnessed the murder of her entire family but managed to survive. It was baffling to Sam that the surviving daughter never tried to make contact with other family members that had survived the Holocaust. What happened to her? It seemed like she just vanished. Her fate became an obsession for Sam. For the next ten years Sam traveled back and forth to Poland accompanied by Judy in search of information that would lead them to this surviving cousin. When Sam became too old to travel, Judy and her husband continued the search.
In addition to trying to uncover the fate of Sam’s cousins, Sam and Judy were intent in finding those Poles who had tried to hide his cousins during the war. They wanted to thank them for their bravery, kindness, compassion and generosity. It was during these conversations, that Sam and Judy were able to discover and then expose and document the many crimes the Polish people and its government committed during this time. The Polish government had always preached to the world how as a country they had saved more Jews than other country during the years of the occupation and the Holocaust. As much as Sam still loved his beloved Poland, he knew that those statements were false. The Polish government, still to this day, continues to deny what others have uncovered about their role in murdering Jews during the Holocaust. This was a very dark side of history for the Polish people, one that they have desperately tried to hide from the world. Sam and Judy worked diligently to expose these crimes and tried their best to make the Polish government admit that these crimes and murders did take place at the hands of the Polish people.
Jews in the Garden: A Holocaust Survivor, the Fate of His Family, and the Secret History of Poland in World War II by Judy Rakowsky was a memoir that revealed the fates of Sam’s cousins and a very dark side of Poland’s history over the course of World War II and the Holocaust. Unfortunately, most survivors of the Holocaust are no longer alive to tell their stories. This book gave me hope that family members like Judy Rakowsky, that belong to the younger generation of Holocaust survivors, will keep the memories, ordeals and atrocities their loved ones suffered alive so that the Holocaust will never be forgotten or repeated. It is important to recognize that the Nazis were not the only ones who were evil enough and capable of committing such atrocities to the Jews that resided in Poland during the Holocaust. This is not something that the Polish government can just sweep under a rug or close their eyes to. I am grateful to Judy Rakowsky for sharing Sam’s story and discoveries in this book. Together they were able to document facts that were hidden and denied by the Poland government for decades. I highly recommend this book.
Thank you to Sourcebooks for allowing me to read Jews in the Garden:A Holocaust Survivor, the Fate of His Family, and the Secret History of Poland in World War II by Judy Rakowsky through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
July 10, 2023
Durkh Leben
Two words Yiddish
And I will carry them in my heart from this day
Because if they survived the most devastating massacre imaginable keeping these two words on repeat in their minds,
Then I can make it through any hard day that comes my way
Durkh Leben
Two words Yiddish
And I will carry them in my heart from this day
Because if they survived the most devastating massacre imaginable keeping these two words on repeat in their minds,
Then I can make it through any hard day that comes my way
Durkh Leben
April 21, 2023
Sometimes grumpy uncles can be great travel companions. At least, when they aren't especially cranky. Or when they aren't actively trying to stop you from visiting Poland well after World War II. Judy Rakowsky can tell you all about it in her book, Jews in the Garden.
World War II buffs will know that Poland has abundant and amazing stories about protecting the Jewish population during the German attack and occupation. Rakowsky's book looks at the other side of the coin where portions of Polish society turned on their Jewish neighbors with a callousness usually reserved for the Gestapo. This is all told through the lens of Rakowsky trying to find a long lost cousin of her uncle, Sam, who avoided execution while the rest of her family perished. Rakowsky is a good writer and Sam is how I assume most people picture their elderly uncles. A little crazy, a little driven, and very hard to read at times. The book is best when Rakowsky is in Poland with Sam and interrogating old friends and neighbors.
There are times where the book will drag. Towards the end of the book, Rakwosky starts to expand the scope of the book to unveil a Poland which is struggling with its past. While this view is important, this book truly sings when it focuses on Rakowsky and Sam. It loses its steam when it goes away from that dynamic. However, the book is still a good read.
(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Sourcebooks.)
World War II buffs will know that Poland has abundant and amazing stories about protecting the Jewish population during the German attack and occupation. Rakowsky's book looks at the other side of the coin where portions of Polish society turned on their Jewish neighbors with a callousness usually reserved for the Gestapo. This is all told through the lens of Rakowsky trying to find a long lost cousin of her uncle, Sam, who avoided execution while the rest of her family perished. Rakowsky is a good writer and Sam is how I assume most people picture their elderly uncles. A little crazy, a little driven, and very hard to read at times. The book is best when Rakowsky is in Poland with Sam and interrogating old friends and neighbors.
There are times where the book will drag. Towards the end of the book, Rakwosky starts to expand the scope of the book to unveil a Poland which is struggling with its past. While this view is important, this book truly sings when it focuses on Rakowsky and Sam. It loses its steam when it goes away from that dynamic. However, the book is still a good read.
(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Sourcebooks.)
May 15, 2023
Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
CONTENT WARNING: Holocaust imagery, genocide, blood, gun violence, antisemitism, violence, grief
I couldn’t help but request this book, since the author’s cousin’s experience so closely resembled that of my father’s. Both Holocaust survivors who were in hiding in Poland, I was curious to see how the author would handle the issue of addressing the role that Poland played in the events of the Holocaust, which is a touchy topic especially in Poland, where it’s illegal to say that Poland collaborated in any way with the Nazis.
It was especially difficult for me to separate out my own feelings with regard to my father’s experiences from the story in this book. I grew up knowing that antisemitism was virulently present in Poland well before WWII started, and I vividly remember my father telling me that when they were in hiding, they often saw other Jews who had trusted the wrong Polish neighbors get sold out to the Nazis. He also explained that the Germans relied on the Polish gentiles to identify their Jewish friends and neighbors, which they had no compunctions doing.
However, this story veers into different territory. Sam, a Holocaust survivor, bring Judy, a younger cousin, back to Poland with him on multiple visits. He’s happy to go back, and easily identifies himself as a Polish Jew returning back home. But Poland has changed how they view Jews, and the relationship between gentiles and Jews has changed over the years:
“He still saw himself as a Pole even though his nation had distanced itself from “Poles of Jewish nationality,” the official term for Polish Jews.”
Asking about the whereabouts of his family members who were murdered leads to the people in the homes showing them mass burial sites in the gardens of the home. This occurs in multiple locations, and the fact that these murders were committed by Polish partisans acting on their own, not in concert with Germans, was widespread knowledge. The families knew that hiding Jewish people was the right thing to do, even though they received ostracism and abuse from the other people in the community for multiple generations. But when they ask about one family member who survived, they are blocked at every turn, and no one seems to know anything about it.
While I was caught up in the mystery of what happened to Hena, I was also intrigued by the relationship growing between Judy and Sam. I could see a lot of my father’s personality traits in Sam, and also a lot of the PTSD that my father struggled with. In addition, I was especially interested in the dynamics at play in how antisemitism changes and shifted over the years in Poland. How and why the legislation protecting Poland and its people for playing any sort of role in the atrocities of the Holocaust came about was also interesting, and it is multifactorial. Rakowsky goes through multiple explanations about this, exploring how people were so easily turned against their friends and neighbors, becoming violent and murderous to such a tiny minority in their midst.
Lately, there are a plethora of Holocaust fiction books available. In the vast majority of these that I’ve seen, they most commonly involve righteous gentiles saving Jews, and that’s the narrative that the Polish government pushes as well. In fact, using the population numbers and the number of righteous gentiles honored by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, the actual percentage of righteous gentiles in Poland works out to be 0.02% of the population.
“In particular, the government insists that it was the norm during the war for Poles to rescue Jews. But if that were the case, if so many had been righteous gentiles saving Jews why do the grandchildren and great grandchildren of the brave rescuers we met still have to endure anger and abuse from their neighbors and communities?”
This book isn’t so much a Holocaust biography as the case study of one family trying to discover what happened to various branches and tracking down one lost member, and trying to figure out how they fit into the history of Poland, where their family had deep roots and tragic ends. It’s the kind of book that hooked me quickly, and I flew through it, finding myself way more emotionally invested that I had expected to be. I’m glad that I read this, and while it is a tough read, it was well worth it, and a great addition to my Jewish Heritage Month reading.
CONTENT WARNING: Holocaust imagery, genocide, blood, gun violence, antisemitism, violence, grief
I couldn’t help but request this book, since the author’s cousin’s experience so closely resembled that of my father’s. Both Holocaust survivors who were in hiding in Poland, I was curious to see how the author would handle the issue of addressing the role that Poland played in the events of the Holocaust, which is a touchy topic especially in Poland, where it’s illegal to say that Poland collaborated in any way with the Nazis.
It was especially difficult for me to separate out my own feelings with regard to my father’s experiences from the story in this book. I grew up knowing that antisemitism was virulently present in Poland well before WWII started, and I vividly remember my father telling me that when they were in hiding, they often saw other Jews who had trusted the wrong Polish neighbors get sold out to the Nazis. He also explained that the Germans relied on the Polish gentiles to identify their Jewish friends and neighbors, which they had no compunctions doing.
However, this story veers into different territory. Sam, a Holocaust survivor, bring Judy, a younger cousin, back to Poland with him on multiple visits. He’s happy to go back, and easily identifies himself as a Polish Jew returning back home. But Poland has changed how they view Jews, and the relationship between gentiles and Jews has changed over the years:
“He still saw himself as a Pole even though his nation had distanced itself from “Poles of Jewish nationality,” the official term for Polish Jews.”
Asking about the whereabouts of his family members who were murdered leads to the people in the homes showing them mass burial sites in the gardens of the home. This occurs in multiple locations, and the fact that these murders were committed by Polish partisans acting on their own, not in concert with Germans, was widespread knowledge. The families knew that hiding Jewish people was the right thing to do, even though they received ostracism and abuse from the other people in the community for multiple generations. But when they ask about one family member who survived, they are blocked at every turn, and no one seems to know anything about it.
While I was caught up in the mystery of what happened to Hena, I was also intrigued by the relationship growing between Judy and Sam. I could see a lot of my father’s personality traits in Sam, and also a lot of the PTSD that my father struggled with. In addition, I was especially interested in the dynamics at play in how antisemitism changes and shifted over the years in Poland. How and why the legislation protecting Poland and its people for playing any sort of role in the atrocities of the Holocaust came about was also interesting, and it is multifactorial. Rakowsky goes through multiple explanations about this, exploring how people were so easily turned against their friends and neighbors, becoming violent and murderous to such a tiny minority in their midst.
Lately, there are a plethora of Holocaust fiction books available. In the vast majority of these that I’ve seen, they most commonly involve righteous gentiles saving Jews, and that’s the narrative that the Polish government pushes as well. In fact, using the population numbers and the number of righteous gentiles honored by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, the actual percentage of righteous gentiles in Poland works out to be 0.02% of the population.
“In particular, the government insists that it was the norm during the war for Poles to rescue Jews. But if that were the case, if so many had been righteous gentiles saving Jews why do the grandchildren and great grandchildren of the brave rescuers we met still have to endure anger and abuse from their neighbors and communities?”
This book isn’t so much a Holocaust biography as the case study of one family trying to discover what happened to various branches and tracking down one lost member, and trying to figure out how they fit into the history of Poland, where their family had deep roots and tragic ends. It’s the kind of book that hooked me quickly, and I flew through it, finding myself way more emotionally invested that I had expected to be. I’m glad that I read this, and while it is a tough read, it was well worth it, and a great addition to my Jewish Heritage Month reading.
June 28, 2023
"Jews in the Garden" joins the excellent trend of writers using modern knowledge and techniques to discover the fate of family lost in the Holocaust--Anne. Berest's "The Postcard" and Sarah Wildman's "Paper Love" would be two other books worth checking out. "Jews in the Garden" is different in that one of the main players survived the War, and with his younger cousin, investigative reporter Judy Rakowsky, he visits his Polish home town nine times between 1991 and 2021.
Two sets of Sam's family were hidden by Christian friends, only to be discovered and murdered in the final days of the war. He learns that there is the possibility that his cousin Hena may have escaped, and with the collapse of communism in Poland, he may be able to find her. Sam is. looking forward to seeing old friends but they discover a poor, wretched country with frightened people hiding from them even though they have come with thanks. Sam is a warm, open man, but old friends are too suspicious to succumb to his charm. It will take decades of visits and political changes in Poland before the stories begin to leak out. Descendents of the families who hid Sam's aunts, uncles, and cousins were harassed for decades by neighbors for hiding Jews. Sam and Judy's discovery of who actually killed his relatives puts them at odds with Poland's new narrative of whitewashing history in the name of national pride.
Judy Rakowsky knows her stuff as a writer, researcher, and historian. "Jews in the Garden" reads like a well-developed mystery, filled with new discoveries about the past and possibly the future.
Many, many thanks to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for a digital review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Two sets of Sam's family were hidden by Christian friends, only to be discovered and murdered in the final days of the war. He learns that there is the possibility that his cousin Hena may have escaped, and with the collapse of communism in Poland, he may be able to find her. Sam is. looking forward to seeing old friends but they discover a poor, wretched country with frightened people hiding from them even though they have come with thanks. Sam is a warm, open man, but old friends are too suspicious to succumb to his charm. It will take decades of visits and political changes in Poland before the stories begin to leak out. Descendents of the families who hid Sam's aunts, uncles, and cousins were harassed for decades by neighbors for hiding Jews. Sam and Judy's discovery of who actually killed his relatives puts them at odds with Poland's new narrative of whitewashing history in the name of national pride.
Judy Rakowsky knows her stuff as a writer, researcher, and historian. "Jews in the Garden" reads like a well-developed mystery, filled with new discoveries about the past and possibly the future.
Many, many thanks to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for a digital review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
August 31, 2023
A revealing and riveting look into one of the most heinous times in human history and the coverup and denial by those who knew and would not tell the truth. Judy's details of her first trips to Poland describe her challenges with the language barrier and her journalistic way of uncovering information through nods, looks, winks and gestures which result in conveying more meaning than words can tell. She interjects the political changes in the country that went from the liberal liberation of Lech Walesa to the Conservative nation that created laws to protect the people through lies and misinformation. The coverup of the nations past is thoroughly detailed. The blanketing over of a sordid past by the current government in the name of national pride is a very disturbing and appaling revelation. Her descriptions of a land she comes to know and feel a part of contrast well with the human suffering depicted. She captures the sights, sounds and smells of the countryside and the tension in the story is palpable. Her description of some of the food, train travels and countryside adds a dimension of being there for the reader. A painful and powerful story that truly needed to be told. This book resonates with the struggle against those who hide the truth and those who seek to uncover it. The sad tales of the complicity of the Polish people in these heinous crimes, neighbor against neighbor and the years of hiding evidence is a new and startling story.
January 2, 2024
This book felt more like a retelling of the author’s journey to discover the secrets of her family’s history rather than the actual secrets of her family’s history. Didn’t do it for me.
July 13, 2023
The book cover features a treasured, rare, photograph that has survived the war of a once whole family, young and old living together. The cover also features a landscape underneath the photograph which becomes all the more poignant when you read the book.
Judy is a journalist and decides to write about her family history, she embarks on a journey and writing task that takes years and is filled with loss and horror but also great bravery, and survival against the odds. Judy discovers those that defied those around them that disagreed and hid her ancestors from the Nazis that still live with the stigma and sometimes feel the repercussions in the present day.
The historical part of the Memoir concentrates mainly on Hena & her family. During the war Hena & her family were hidden by a farmer, the allies were coming closer some would say they became a little more complacent, or a little braver and came out from their cramped hiding place in a barn to get some fresh air and see the sky. Unfortunately someone revealed were they were, reported them for being Jews. They are found and shot, all except Hena who sees what happens from behind a nearby tree. Hena's family, Sam's family were murdered by Poles, 'partisans' who sympathised & agreed with the Nazis getting rid of the Jews in Poland!
Judy travels back and forth many times both with Sam, (her older cousin), and sometimes alone gathering information, searching records when she is allowed to access them, if/when these documents still exist.
It's during a visit back to his home village that Sam and Judy discover that Hena's family were buried beneath the cherry tree, by the farmer who barely escaped with his own life. The tree itself reveals the place of burial by producing cherries that never ripen, they just turn black & rot. Sam and Judy are told by the descendents of the farmer that this is sign the villagers cannot ignore as they ignored the gunshots and what had happened that night. Sam and Judy visit and say a prayer.
Sam visits Poland again later and obtains permission and has a piece of bone belonging his family members that were murdered and buried, exhumed so he can take it back to the family burial plot in America.
At one point Sam visits a monument that has been 'forgotten' and vandalised, so he scratches his name on it, defiantly saying he was here, that he survived!
Theres another story told of the grandmother of the family too old and ill to flee with her fitter family members, she is left at home to face the Jewish 'round up'. Defiant to the last she ignores the call to gather at the square and has to be dragged there literally kicking and fighting to the very last moment of her life when she is shot along with the other Jewish people rounded up from the village.
Judy notices that when Sam visits what he still considers his hometown, Sam has a sort of spark of energy, an arrogant defiance when in Poland, He is back! They missed one! He survived! He escaped! He made it and is here to tell what happened! However during the many visits to Poland and the book Sam is getting older, at times it all seems too much for him, too upsetting. At times he becomes irritated translating for Judy as she doesn't speak the language fluently. Sometimes he shuts Judy out of his meetings and excursions, other times he welcomes her. Judy herself become frustrated when Sam wishes to rely on locals who say they have information and leads about Hena only to find that they lead to nothing. People are still reluctant to speak and reveal the truth about what happened. They prefer to distract with thing they find less uncomfortable to deal with. An example of this is when someone takes Sam to visit someone who has some furniture that was his families. It's quite strange, they even warn Sam he must not try to steal it!!
I was both devastated & disappointed for Sam, and Judy that they didn't really obtain the conclusion they wished for with their search for Hena. I was stunned, shocked and horrified in equal measure that they discovered what happened to the Rozeneks was so common place and that in today's society it is still being 'swept under the carpet' by so many. Why not openly admit these atrocities occurred then perhaps information could flow more freely for those still alive and their descendants who want to know more their deceased families? Why not lift all restrictions on paperwork to enable families to be reunited before it truly is too late? Maybe this book will bring out someone who knows/knew Hena or even Hena herself, or her descendants which would be truly amazing! For them to be reunited with Sam, and his descendants.
This book is not a light hearted, nor is it a 'happy ever after' read, it is quite facts & figures heavy in places. It contains details of the murder of innocent people of all ages. Though this is just one families true story there are so many branches of it to be told. The stark thing is that this is just one families story, how many more similar stories are there out there. It makes you think of the families with no one left alive to tell their stories, it really is thought provoking, and heart breaking too. Theres so much information within this book about the people at the time of the war and the years following it, I feel like I could talk forever about it, my review just touches on certain parts of the book, there is so much contained in this biography/memoir. There were many times I felt like reaching out and hugging both Sam, Judy and the descendants of those that hid Jews from the Nazis and partisans. It's so difficult to fathom why did the farmers neigbours feel the need to give the Jewish family away so close to the end of the war? Why did the partisans that were fighting the Nazis could/would murder a Jewish family?
Having said all that I am glad I read the book, it tells a devastating true story from a horrible point in real history that should never, ever be forgotten.
Judy is a journalist and decides to write about her family history, she embarks on a journey and writing task that takes years and is filled with loss and horror but also great bravery, and survival against the odds. Judy discovers those that defied those around them that disagreed and hid her ancestors from the Nazis that still live with the stigma and sometimes feel the repercussions in the present day.
The historical part of the Memoir concentrates mainly on Hena & her family. During the war Hena & her family were hidden by a farmer, the allies were coming closer some would say they became a little more complacent, or a little braver and came out from their cramped hiding place in a barn to get some fresh air and see the sky. Unfortunately someone revealed were they were, reported them for being Jews. They are found and shot, all except Hena who sees what happens from behind a nearby tree. Hena's family, Sam's family were murdered by Poles, 'partisans' who sympathised & agreed with the Nazis getting rid of the Jews in Poland!
Judy travels back and forth many times both with Sam, (her older cousin), and sometimes alone gathering information, searching records when she is allowed to access them, if/when these documents still exist.
It's during a visit back to his home village that Sam and Judy discover that Hena's family were buried beneath the cherry tree, by the farmer who barely escaped with his own life. The tree itself reveals the place of burial by producing cherries that never ripen, they just turn black & rot. Sam and Judy are told by the descendents of the farmer that this is sign the villagers cannot ignore as they ignored the gunshots and what had happened that night. Sam and Judy visit and say a prayer.
Sam visits Poland again later and obtains permission and has a piece of bone belonging his family members that were murdered and buried, exhumed so he can take it back to the family burial plot in America.
At one point Sam visits a monument that has been 'forgotten' and vandalised, so he scratches his name on it, defiantly saying he was here, that he survived!
Theres another story told of the grandmother of the family too old and ill to flee with her fitter family members, she is left at home to face the Jewish 'round up'. Defiant to the last she ignores the call to gather at the square and has to be dragged there literally kicking and fighting to the very last moment of her life when she is shot along with the other Jewish people rounded up from the village.
Judy notices that when Sam visits what he still considers his hometown, Sam has a sort of spark of energy, an arrogant defiance when in Poland, He is back! They missed one! He survived! He escaped! He made it and is here to tell what happened! However during the many visits to Poland and the book Sam is getting older, at times it all seems too much for him, too upsetting. At times he becomes irritated translating for Judy as she doesn't speak the language fluently. Sometimes he shuts Judy out of his meetings and excursions, other times he welcomes her. Judy herself become frustrated when Sam wishes to rely on locals who say they have information and leads about Hena only to find that they lead to nothing. People are still reluctant to speak and reveal the truth about what happened. They prefer to distract with thing they find less uncomfortable to deal with. An example of this is when someone takes Sam to visit someone who has some furniture that was his families. It's quite strange, they even warn Sam he must not try to steal it!!
I was both devastated & disappointed for Sam, and Judy that they didn't really obtain the conclusion they wished for with their search for Hena. I was stunned, shocked and horrified in equal measure that they discovered what happened to the Rozeneks was so common place and that in today's society it is still being 'swept under the carpet' by so many. Why not openly admit these atrocities occurred then perhaps information could flow more freely for those still alive and their descendants who want to know more their deceased families? Why not lift all restrictions on paperwork to enable families to be reunited before it truly is too late? Maybe this book will bring out someone who knows/knew Hena or even Hena herself, or her descendants which would be truly amazing! For them to be reunited with Sam, and his descendants.
This book is not a light hearted, nor is it a 'happy ever after' read, it is quite facts & figures heavy in places. It contains details of the murder of innocent people of all ages. Though this is just one families true story there are so many branches of it to be told. The stark thing is that this is just one families story, how many more similar stories are there out there. It makes you think of the families with no one left alive to tell their stories, it really is thought provoking, and heart breaking too. Theres so much information within this book about the people at the time of the war and the years following it, I feel like I could talk forever about it, my review just touches on certain parts of the book, there is so much contained in this biography/memoir. There were many times I felt like reaching out and hugging both Sam, Judy and the descendants of those that hid Jews from the Nazis and partisans. It's so difficult to fathom why did the farmers neigbours feel the need to give the Jewish family away so close to the end of the war? Why did the partisans that were fighting the Nazis could/would murder a Jewish family?
Having said all that I am glad I read the book, it tells a devastating true story from a horrible point in real history that should never, ever be forgotten.
July 4, 2023
A compelling true story that takes former investigative journalist Judy Rakowsky on a labyrinthine quest through Poland with her father’s first cousin, Holocaust survivor Sam (Rakowski) Ron, to discover what really happened to the family that disappeared during the war. There had been talk that Hena Rozenek, just 16 years old in 1944 when her family was murdered in front of her, had survived the encounter and escaped to – where exactly? The Nazis kept notoriously meticulous records in the concentration camps (where other family members’ deaths had been recorded) but still Hena’s name was nowhere to be found.
Thus began a decades-long saga; Sam and Judy traveled back and forth between their homes in the States and the Polish countryside several times, where it seemed they were met with roadblocks at every turn. The author dexterously melds the mundane with the miraculous through personal anecdotes, family lore, and historical accounts. She narrates the pair’s journey down overgrown dirt roads and past defunct flour mills to the site of a forgotten massacre, through the Polish village that Sam called home, and into the dining rooms of tight-lipped neighbors who had either harmed or harbored their family.
The story shows how doggedly Sam and Judy continued to search for the truth. In Jews in the Garden, Rakowsky steadily traverses the historical and the contemporary, deftly navigating half-truths, painful memories, and alarming patterns of obfuscation. She explores Sam’s complex relationship with his home country and her own role as both family member and historical writer (a hard-won balance!) In their quest for answers, an epiphany finally came during a conversation with farmer Wladyslaw Sodo, the man whose father had tried to hide Hena’s immediate family during the war. Sodo revealed that the men who massacred Hena’s family were not German Nazis, but Poles, part of the so-called “Home Army.” But Poland has widely been known for its stories of protecting Jewish families, so what wasn’t adding up?
There are a lot of books about the Holocaust, but this one takes a hard look at a rarely-acknowledged truth about some of the heroic historical narratives we commonly hear about WWII. Besides, there have been concerted efforts to erase those bitter parts of history; Poland seems determined to forget. There have even been recent laws to that effect (to the outcry of international free-speech advocates, by the way). It’s hard not to think of some similar laws banning historical topics in American schools or the flurry of activity to ban books in this country. But Sam and Judy weren’t looking to put anyone on trial or drag an entire country’s name through the mud – they just wanted to know: what happened to Hena? As readers, we think: why is finding the truth so difficult?
Jews in the Garden reads not only as a detective tale, but also as a contemplation of the threads that bind past and present. It seems many want to cut those ties: move forward, get over it already, that was ancient history, so on and so forth. Undoubtedly those threads have become tangled and knotted in the U.S. as well, making this an even more relevant and timely read. How can we learn from Sam and Judy’s story? Are we brave enough to try to untangle those threads and look at history head-on?
Thus began a decades-long saga; Sam and Judy traveled back and forth between their homes in the States and the Polish countryside several times, where it seemed they were met with roadblocks at every turn. The author dexterously melds the mundane with the miraculous through personal anecdotes, family lore, and historical accounts. She narrates the pair’s journey down overgrown dirt roads and past defunct flour mills to the site of a forgotten massacre, through the Polish village that Sam called home, and into the dining rooms of tight-lipped neighbors who had either harmed or harbored their family.
The story shows how doggedly Sam and Judy continued to search for the truth. In Jews in the Garden, Rakowsky steadily traverses the historical and the contemporary, deftly navigating half-truths, painful memories, and alarming patterns of obfuscation. She explores Sam’s complex relationship with his home country and her own role as both family member and historical writer (a hard-won balance!) In their quest for answers, an epiphany finally came during a conversation with farmer Wladyslaw Sodo, the man whose father had tried to hide Hena’s immediate family during the war. Sodo revealed that the men who massacred Hena’s family were not German Nazis, but Poles, part of the so-called “Home Army.” But Poland has widely been known for its stories of protecting Jewish families, so what wasn’t adding up?
There are a lot of books about the Holocaust, but this one takes a hard look at a rarely-acknowledged truth about some of the heroic historical narratives we commonly hear about WWII. Besides, there have been concerted efforts to erase those bitter parts of history; Poland seems determined to forget. There have even been recent laws to that effect (to the outcry of international free-speech advocates, by the way). It’s hard not to think of some similar laws banning historical topics in American schools or the flurry of activity to ban books in this country. But Sam and Judy weren’t looking to put anyone on trial or drag an entire country’s name through the mud – they just wanted to know: what happened to Hena? As readers, we think: why is finding the truth so difficult?
Jews in the Garden reads not only as a detective tale, but also as a contemplation of the threads that bind past and present. It seems many want to cut those ties: move forward, get over it already, that was ancient history, so on and so forth. Undoubtedly those threads have become tangled and knotted in the U.S. as well, making this an even more relevant and timely read. How can we learn from Sam and Judy’s story? Are we brave enough to try to untangle those threads and look at history head-on?
July 11, 2023
Jews in the Garden by Judy Rakowsky is harrowing, heartbreaking and at times unbearable to read because the people and events are real. Decades after WWII, the author-journalist and her uncle Sam traveled to Poland several times in search of cousin Hena who survived the brutal massacre of her family during WWII. However, they were often met with hostility and disdain rather than welcomed which made their search extremely difficult. They were disheartened to learn that Poles killed fellow Poles who were Jews. Nazis were not the only barbarians. It would be so difficult to come to terms with that knowledge!
Those intrigued by the Holocaust and Poland specifically during and after WWII ought to read Jews In the Garden, I have read many, many related books which crushed my heart and this did the same. It is not a book to read all at once as it can be difficult to process but it is an enriching and informative experience. The capacity of human beings boggles the mind, especially turning on friends and neighbours merely as they were guilty of just being Jews. The writing is compelling and the photographs add an even stronger personal depth. I also appreciate learning more about the subject and this is from a very interesting perspective.
My sincere thank you to SOURCEBOOKS and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this powerfully emotive and important book, one which should be required reading.
Those intrigued by the Holocaust and Poland specifically during and after WWII ought to read Jews In the Garden, I have read many, many related books which crushed my heart and this did the same. It is not a book to read all at once as it can be difficult to process but it is an enriching and informative experience. The capacity of human beings boggles the mind, especially turning on friends and neighbours merely as they were guilty of just being Jews. The writing is compelling and the photographs add an even stronger personal depth. I also appreciate learning more about the subject and this is from a very interesting perspective.
My sincere thank you to SOURCEBOOKS and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this powerfully emotive and important book, one which should be required reading.
July 7, 2023
A unique look at Poland’s involvement in the Holocaust, seen through the eyes of a survivor and his journalist cousin. The fast pace kept me engaged, and the combination of personal narrative and historical description helped the reader understand the human element of those involved as well as the wider patterns that led to these horrific events. The book also discusses the recent trends in Poland to stifle the truth, which serves as a cautionary tale to those of us living in America. A truly recommended read.
August 20, 2023
This was an interesting book, but just a bit of a slog. Although I certainly appreciate the fact that this man was trying to make sense of his heritage and discover who survived from his family and then trying to locate them, I just had a difficult time staying involved in the details. Actually, my biggest take away from this was that Polish partisans were responsible for killing many hidden Jewish people in the final days of the war. This seems to be a pretty horrifying piece of information to me, I can't imagine how surviving Jewish relatives reacted to the news.
June 11, 2023
For over thirty years, Judy Rakowsky, a former Boston Globe crime reporter, has been joining her cousin Sam, a #Holocaust survivor on trips back to Poland, in search of lost family, identity, and memory. This book - a memoir, true detective story, and a frank examination of how Poland grapples (and doesn’t) with its legacy in the Shoah - is a fantastic read. What a great contribution to the field of Holocaust literature.
September 10, 2023
Jews in the Garden, A Holocaust Survivor, the Fate of His Family, and the Secret History of Poland in WWII, by Judy Rakowski
Typically, I am not particularly attracted to the genre of biographies or autobiographies, however, this book was an exception. This true story about American Holocaust survivor Sam Rakowski Ron written by his cousin, Judy Rakowsky, is absolutely riveting. Thanks to Judy, his story is brought to light. In addition, due to their incredible persistence, Judy and Sam uncover the truth about what happened to many Jewish citizens of Poland during the Holocaust.
Like legendary Sherlock and Watson, Sam and Judy smell a cover-up after making multiple trips to Poland to find out what exactly happened to members of his family during the Holocaust. Sam is particularly determined to find a cousin who reportedly survived. Everywhere he goes, he is stonewalled. Even his childhood neighbors and friends refuse to answer his simple questions about her.
Eventually, Judy, a journalistic detective by profession, pursues the matter herself by petitioning documents and contacting Polish record agencies and groups dedicated to helping Holocaust survivors. Her investigations confirm an ugly truth. “Nobody knows, I thought, or wants anyone to know.” (Pg. 326)
In his nineties, Sam scrutinizes every shred of information Judy uncovers. “Well into old age, he was still unearthing nuggets of information about lost people, connecting dots, and even as he learned ugly truths in his hometown, he still offered solace to people he wasn’t so sure about. He darned many holes in the fabric of our family and our people.” (Pg 331).
This account is extremely well written. To have captured the actual conversations of so many real people, Judy’s skills are astonishing. This story reads like a movie script. The photos bring it to life. She gives us the details of the settings. “Cold rain shrouded a rolling checkerboard of chocolate earth and sage-colored seedlings.” (Pg. 203) And the horror of being hunted comes to life. “The dark forms encroached on the house. Fear and helplessness gripped her gut.” (Pg x)
Sam is a kind and venerable man. He is unusually optimistic. Even while suffering in the Sachsenhausen Concentration camp, “If I’m going to die tomorrow,” Sam reasoned, “why start today?” (Pg. 16)
I highly recommend this important addition to Holocaust history. Note: The findings of the Rakowski’s have been corroborated by Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking, editors of “Night without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland.”
Additionally, the message of this book is extremely timely given the current climate in the US. Specifically, the attempts to "hide" information by banning books in libraries. Be sure to read the note from the author on page, 347.
Typically, I am not particularly attracted to the genre of biographies or autobiographies, however, this book was an exception. This true story about American Holocaust survivor Sam Rakowski Ron written by his cousin, Judy Rakowsky, is absolutely riveting. Thanks to Judy, his story is brought to light. In addition, due to their incredible persistence, Judy and Sam uncover the truth about what happened to many Jewish citizens of Poland during the Holocaust.
Like legendary Sherlock and Watson, Sam and Judy smell a cover-up after making multiple trips to Poland to find out what exactly happened to members of his family during the Holocaust. Sam is particularly determined to find a cousin who reportedly survived. Everywhere he goes, he is stonewalled. Even his childhood neighbors and friends refuse to answer his simple questions about her.
Eventually, Judy, a journalistic detective by profession, pursues the matter herself by petitioning documents and contacting Polish record agencies and groups dedicated to helping Holocaust survivors. Her investigations confirm an ugly truth. “Nobody knows, I thought, or wants anyone to know.” (Pg. 326)
In his nineties, Sam scrutinizes every shred of information Judy uncovers. “Well into old age, he was still unearthing nuggets of information about lost people, connecting dots, and even as he learned ugly truths in his hometown, he still offered solace to people he wasn’t so sure about. He darned many holes in the fabric of our family and our people.” (Pg 331).
This account is extremely well written. To have captured the actual conversations of so many real people, Judy’s skills are astonishing. This story reads like a movie script. The photos bring it to life. She gives us the details of the settings. “Cold rain shrouded a rolling checkerboard of chocolate earth and sage-colored seedlings.” (Pg. 203) And the horror of being hunted comes to life. “The dark forms encroached on the house. Fear and helplessness gripped her gut.” (Pg x)
Sam is a kind and venerable man. He is unusually optimistic. Even while suffering in the Sachsenhausen Concentration camp, “If I’m going to die tomorrow,” Sam reasoned, “why start today?” (Pg. 16)
I highly recommend this important addition to Holocaust history. Note: The findings of the Rakowski’s have been corroborated by Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking, editors of “Night without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland.”
Additionally, the message of this book is extremely timely given the current climate in the US. Specifically, the attempts to "hide" information by banning books in libraries. Be sure to read the note from the author on page, 347.
August 15, 2023
So many characters to keep track of…Saying that, however, reading this book educated me to the nebulous position the people and government of Poland have placed themselves regarding the Holocaust.
April 24, 2024
Jews in the Garden is an important book with an enlightening viewpoint on the history of Jews in Poland during WWII and in the years after, but it is a slog to read. There is a great deal of minute detail that is not engaging as a read. I really wanted to like this book, but I just could not.
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September 21, 2023JEWS IN THE GARDEN by award winning, investigative journalist Judy Rakowsky is an eloquent, deeply personal memoir about her previously unknown Jewish relatives in Poland, most of whom died in Concentration Camps during the Holocaust.
Read the full review on BookTrib.com
Read the full review on BookTrib.com
March 29, 2023
Though the book started out as a Holocaust survivor in his 80's, along with a niece who was a journalist, was trying to locate one cousin who had escaped being shot with her family in Poland, it soon became another sort of journey of discovery, that being the astonishing fact that not all Jews were killed by the Germans during/after WWII. Instead, as this family discovered, many of the Jews killed during, and especially after, WWII were done by fellow Poles, something that is heavily disputed and denied to this day. The repercussions of their search for a missing cousin showed people 75 years later were still not willing to admit what some of them in Poland had done to neighbors, friends, anc co-workers.
I will be the first to admit that the constant repetitions of Polish names and locations tended to be rather confusing, and there is no way I was able to pronounce them in my mind, as I like to do! Great uncle Sammy rubbed me a little the wrong way at times, but then I had to remember that he was the survivor, he was in his 80's and 90's, and it was his journey of discovery that I was following in this book. However, he did the world a great service by bringing to everyone's attention the fact that Poland was NOT blameless concerning the deaths of her Jewish citizens, that Poland was not an innocent victim in every instance, and that truth needs to be brought to light.
I was sent this ebook ARC by NetGalley; my opinions, however, are all my own.
I will be the first to admit that the constant repetitions of Polish names and locations tended to be rather confusing, and there is no way I was able to pronounce them in my mind, as I like to do! Great uncle Sammy rubbed me a little the wrong way at times, but then I had to remember that he was the survivor, he was in his 80's and 90's, and it was his journey of discovery that I was following in this book. However, he did the world a great service by bringing to everyone's attention the fact that Poland was NOT blameless concerning the deaths of her Jewish citizens, that Poland was not an innocent victim in every instance, and that truth needs to be brought to light.
I was sent this ebook ARC by NetGalley; my opinions, however, are all my own.
December 12, 2023
Some awful history here (this is only a spoiler alert for people who know nothing about the Holocaust): Jews had lived in Poland for a thousand years (!). The pre-World War Two Jewish population of Poland was roughly three million. The survival rate of said Jewish population was 1.5 to 2% (!). The word genocide is used rather loosely at times; this is the real thing.
Jews were persecuted in part because they were perceived by conservatives as being pro-communist (the fact that Central and Eastern European leftists and communists simultaneously perceived Jews as being a bulwark of capitalist exploitation proves the point that antisemitism is the only constant here: Jews play the role of the bogeyman -- whatever that bogeyman happens to be -- in the sick imaginations of people around the world. The sick reality is that people at either end of the political spectrum could agree on only one thing: the Jews were to blame for whatever ailed them).
Antisemitism continued under communist rule in postwar Poland to the point that the tiny remnant of Holocaust survivors and their children (down from a population of 3 million in 1939 to 20,000 in 1968) were ousted from whatever modest positions of authority they had attained in Poland and were desperate to leave.
SOME SPOILERS: The book recounts the author's travels to Poland with a distant family member (Sam Rakowsky) who had grown up in Poland and who still had fond feelings for his non-Jewish neighbors and the small town in which his family lived. They discover that many of their family members died during the war years not at the hands of the Nazis but at the hands of Polish partisans fighting against the Nazis. Many Jews perished at the hands of Polish partisans who ruthlessly pursued Jews who had been hidden away by their Christian neighbors even at a time when the occupying Nazi army was fully engaged in battle or in retreat against the Soviet advance (Again, antisemitism being the one thing upon which even combatants engaged in bitter fighting against each other can agree, Polish Jews were not safe from even their long time neighbors). The book's title comes from some discoveries about the disdainful way the Polish partisans left the bodies of the Jews they massacred.
In the course of Sam and Judy's travels they discover that a cousin of Sam's is said to have survived. They make several trips to Poland over thirty years to try to find the surviving cousin. Sam discovers that his old neighbors with whom his family had had the warmest ties before and during the war and with whom Sam had kept in touch over the years were extremely reluctant to talk or to give any information. The Poles who must have known what exactly happened to Sam's family and to his cousin in particular claimed not to remember anything. Information comes out in a series of tiny clues and fragments of information.
The challenge of trying to find out what happened to the cousin who survived an attack by Polish partisans is formidable. Among many other things, is the realization that the teenage girl would almost certainly have changed her name and tried very hard to conceal her Jewish identity. We learn in the book that Jews who returned soon after the war ended were often treated very badly and sometimes violently attacked, so the author realizes that the long lost cousin would have been in no position to reveal her true identity after the war. Indeed, it's likely that she would have created an entirely new life for herself (probably married with children, etc.) and, given the persistence of antisemitism in postwar Poland (even the grandchildren of the brave Poles who hid Jews during the war were taunted and treated as outsiders in very recent years) that may be starting to wane slightly only in very recent years, she may well not wish to be found. It would turn her entire life upside down and would likely have caused problems in her family. The author's pursuit continued nonetheless.
SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW: The reason Sam's old Polish friends and neighbors wouldn't talk is because the Poles had developed a national mythology in which all Poles were mere victims of Nazi violence and the Polish partisans who fought against the Nazi occupiers were unsullied heroes. The ugly truth is that the Polish partisans were often just as antisemitic as the Nazi occupiers and the people who betrayed Sam's family and those who pursued them and shot them mercilessly were still there.
The Poles, like most of Europe at the time, were steeped in antisemitism and ready to believe just about any bad thing about the Jews. This is because antisemitism is baked into Christian belief (the Jews killed Jesus and their descendants should be held accountable; the last of the Christian gospels, the Book of John, clearly equates Jews with the devil, etc.). On top of the antisemitism found in the Bible, Christian leaders began and perpetuated outrageous lies about Jews, most notably that they kidnapped and killed Christian children to make Passover Matzo (incidentally, these lurid and absurd stories were brought by Christian missionaries to the Middle East in the 19th century and led Arab muslims into attacking Jewish communities with whom they had previously lived in peace).
Jews were barred from owning land and pursuing various professions but they were hired by Christians to do things like collect rent and taxes and they were allowed to loan money. Jews did well at the things they were allowed to do and many became relatively wealthy. Incidentally, Jews had to become as wealthy as they could because Christian authorities demanded "protection" payments to tolerate their Jewish communities. So when the German princes of Martin Luther's time, eg, didn't want to pay back their loans they whipped up the local peasantry who resented the Jews as tax and rent collectors and the violence against Jews meant that the loans would not have to be repaid. Something that Rakowsky describes in the book is how greed was a huge motivating factor in the antisemitic attacks of the Poles who took over the homes and businesses and other wealth of the destroyed Jewish communities. To its shame, Poland has offered no compensation to Jewish survivors and descendants whose property was expropriated during the war but then remained in the possession of Poles after the war.
This book will come as a shock to most readers who probably have no awareness that the antisemitism of the Nazi regime actually resonated with and was shared by many people throughout Europe. Jews were not safe anywhere in Europe. After the war, antisemitism fell out of fashion in Europe because of its association with the Nazi regime but Germany is the only European country to really acknowledge its antisemitism and to seek to make at least some amends. Other European countries tried to sweep their own histories of violent antisemitism under the rug without making any attempt to come to terms with it.
This, by the way, is an important reason the state of Israel, safe and secure, is absolutely essential.
Jews were persecuted in part because they were perceived by conservatives as being pro-communist (the fact that Central and Eastern European leftists and communists simultaneously perceived Jews as being a bulwark of capitalist exploitation proves the point that antisemitism is the only constant here: Jews play the role of the bogeyman -- whatever that bogeyman happens to be -- in the sick imaginations of people around the world. The sick reality is that people at either end of the political spectrum could agree on only one thing: the Jews were to blame for whatever ailed them).
Antisemitism continued under communist rule in postwar Poland to the point that the tiny remnant of Holocaust survivors and their children (down from a population of 3 million in 1939 to 20,000 in 1968) were ousted from whatever modest positions of authority they had attained in Poland and were desperate to leave.
SOME SPOILERS: The book recounts the author's travels to Poland with a distant family member (Sam Rakowsky) who had grown up in Poland and who still had fond feelings for his non-Jewish neighbors and the small town in which his family lived. They discover that many of their family members died during the war years not at the hands of the Nazis but at the hands of Polish partisans fighting against the Nazis. Many Jews perished at the hands of Polish partisans who ruthlessly pursued Jews who had been hidden away by their Christian neighbors even at a time when the occupying Nazi army was fully engaged in battle or in retreat against the Soviet advance (Again, antisemitism being the one thing upon which even combatants engaged in bitter fighting against each other can agree, Polish Jews were not safe from even their long time neighbors). The book's title comes from some discoveries about the disdainful way the Polish partisans left the bodies of the Jews they massacred.
In the course of Sam and Judy's travels they discover that a cousin of Sam's is said to have survived. They make several trips to Poland over thirty years to try to find the surviving cousin. Sam discovers that his old neighbors with whom his family had had the warmest ties before and during the war and with whom Sam had kept in touch over the years were extremely reluctant to talk or to give any information. The Poles who must have known what exactly happened to Sam's family and to his cousin in particular claimed not to remember anything. Information comes out in a series of tiny clues and fragments of information.
The challenge of trying to find out what happened to the cousin who survived an attack by Polish partisans is formidable. Among many other things, is the realization that the teenage girl would almost certainly have changed her name and tried very hard to conceal her Jewish identity. We learn in the book that Jews who returned soon after the war ended were often treated very badly and sometimes violently attacked, so the author realizes that the long lost cousin would have been in no position to reveal her true identity after the war. Indeed, it's likely that she would have created an entirely new life for herself (probably married with children, etc.) and, given the persistence of antisemitism in postwar Poland (even the grandchildren of the brave Poles who hid Jews during the war were taunted and treated as outsiders in very recent years) that may be starting to wane slightly only in very recent years, she may well not wish to be found. It would turn her entire life upside down and would likely have caused problems in her family. The author's pursuit continued nonetheless.
SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW: The reason Sam's old Polish friends and neighbors wouldn't talk is because the Poles had developed a national mythology in which all Poles were mere victims of Nazi violence and the Polish partisans who fought against the Nazi occupiers were unsullied heroes. The ugly truth is that the Polish partisans were often just as antisemitic as the Nazi occupiers and the people who betrayed Sam's family and those who pursued them and shot them mercilessly were still there.
The Poles, like most of Europe at the time, were steeped in antisemitism and ready to believe just about any bad thing about the Jews. This is because antisemitism is baked into Christian belief (the Jews killed Jesus and their descendants should be held accountable; the last of the Christian gospels, the Book of John, clearly equates Jews with the devil, etc.). On top of the antisemitism found in the Bible, Christian leaders began and perpetuated outrageous lies about Jews, most notably that they kidnapped and killed Christian children to make Passover Matzo (incidentally, these lurid and absurd stories were brought by Christian missionaries to the Middle East in the 19th century and led Arab muslims into attacking Jewish communities with whom they had previously lived in peace).
Jews were barred from owning land and pursuing various professions but they were hired by Christians to do things like collect rent and taxes and they were allowed to loan money. Jews did well at the things they were allowed to do and many became relatively wealthy. Incidentally, Jews had to become as wealthy as they could because Christian authorities demanded "protection" payments to tolerate their Jewish communities. So when the German princes of Martin Luther's time, eg, didn't want to pay back their loans they whipped up the local peasantry who resented the Jews as tax and rent collectors and the violence against Jews meant that the loans would not have to be repaid. Something that Rakowsky describes in the book is how greed was a huge motivating factor in the antisemitic attacks of the Poles who took over the homes and businesses and other wealth of the destroyed Jewish communities. To its shame, Poland has offered no compensation to Jewish survivors and descendants whose property was expropriated during the war but then remained in the possession of Poles after the war.
This book will come as a shock to most readers who probably have no awareness that the antisemitism of the Nazi regime actually resonated with and was shared by many people throughout Europe. Jews were not safe anywhere in Europe. After the war, antisemitism fell out of fashion in Europe because of its association with the Nazi regime but Germany is the only European country to really acknowledge its antisemitism and to seek to make at least some amends. Other European countries tried to sweep their own histories of violent antisemitism under the rug without making any attempt to come to terms with it.
This, by the way, is an important reason the state of Israel, safe and secure, is absolutely essential.
August 5, 2023
Jews in the Garden is magnificent, part nemoir and family history, part detective story and part history of post-war Polish relations with Jews and World War II.
With a survivor cousin, Sam, author Judy Rakowsky set out to find a missing cousin who survived a massacre of her family by Polish partisans near the end of the war.
Sam and Judy's efforts to find their missing cousin are heroic, though unfortunately not successful. But in their many visits to Poland, they unearth the basic story of what occurred. More importantly, their search evolved into a broader investigation of Polish attacks on Jews during the war, and the continuing conspiracy of silence that his (and continues to hide) that history in service to an ahistorical claim that Poles were wholly innocent victims of the Nazis. Without question, Poles were brutalized by the Germans. But the ugly truth is that some Poles were murderously anti-Semitic. And although the identities and deeds of the killers were largely known, the punishment for their crimes was often light or non-existent. And in the villages where these terrible killings occurred, the crimes were neither acknowledged nor repudiated. In the course of their search, Sam and Judy faced these issues directly, and Judy skillfully describes the denial she and Sam experienced, and her own reactions to it. Others have also written about this issue, but what makes Jews in the Garden compelling is the interweaving of the social history with the family nemoir. This is an important contribution to that history.
With a survivor cousin, Sam, author Judy Rakowsky set out to find a missing cousin who survived a massacre of her family by Polish partisans near the end of the war.
Sam and Judy's efforts to find their missing cousin are heroic, though unfortunately not successful. But in their many visits to Poland, they unearth the basic story of what occurred. More importantly, their search evolved into a broader investigation of Polish attacks on Jews during the war, and the continuing conspiracy of silence that his (and continues to hide) that history in service to an ahistorical claim that Poles were wholly innocent victims of the Nazis. Without question, Poles were brutalized by the Germans. But the ugly truth is that some Poles were murderously anti-Semitic. And although the identities and deeds of the killers were largely known, the punishment for their crimes was often light or non-existent. And in the villages where these terrible killings occurred, the crimes were neither acknowledged nor repudiated. In the course of their search, Sam and Judy faced these issues directly, and Judy skillfully describes the denial she and Sam experienced, and her own reactions to it. Others have also written about this issue, but what makes Jews in the Garden compelling is the interweaving of the social history with the family nemoir. This is an important contribution to that history.
September 27, 2023
As a Polish American whose family was heavily involved in the Polish Underground, this was an important but tough read for me. It breaks my heart that Poland’s national pride remains more important than owning up to its mistakes, which is at the core of this book’s story.
The real highlight of the book is Sam. His enthusiasm for reconnecting with his hometown and his roots despite everything is heartwarming and inspiring.
I’m docking a star for a lot of redundancy and some issues with pacing, but overall, this is an important piece of Holocaust research.
The real highlight of the book is Sam. His enthusiasm for reconnecting with his hometown and his roots despite everything is heartwarming and inspiring.
I’m docking a star for a lot of redundancy and some issues with pacing, but overall, this is an important piece of Holocaust research.
July 27, 2023
I was flabbergasted by my reading experience with this book. It presents a tale of investigation and suspense that covered several decades. Centerstage was a Holocaust survivor and some members of his extended family, returning to Poland numerous times trying to seek facts about the initially unknown fates of several relatives.
There were a number of threads and investigative directions that continued through the years. One in particular seemed to get more attention than others, being mentioned repeatedly along the way and serving to provide momentum to different trips and alternative means of investigation.
And then, unexpectedly, the book ended. The oft-repeated thread of investigation, seemingly the reason for so many trips and so much effort, was open and unresolved.
Say what? The author deserves thirty lashes with a wet noodle for doing that.
There were a number of threads and investigative directions that continued through the years. One in particular seemed to get more attention than others, being mentioned repeatedly along the way and serving to provide momentum to different trips and alternative means of investigation.
And then, unexpectedly, the book ended. The oft-repeated thread of investigation, seemingly the reason for so many trips and so much effort, was open and unresolved.
Say what? The author deserves thirty lashes with a wet noodle for doing that.
February 12, 2024
"History should be only true and it doesn't matter how it looks."
The book presents a side of WWII I didn't know. I now understand why.
I'm not a fan of the writing style, but 4 stars for history.
The book presents a side of WWII I didn't know. I now understand why.
I'm not a fan of the writing style, but 4 stars for history.
September 14, 2023
I’m surprised at the vast number of people who gave this book 4 or 5 stars. The writing was bad which was surprising for a person who was a journalist. The many trips back to Poland were repetitious and pretty much uninteresting. After too many I didn’t care if they found the missing Hena One very important point brought out was that Poles now want to erase all blame from either the government or citizens for the murder of so many Jews
February 19, 2024
Remind me to never read another book written by a journalist. There is zero ability to tell a compelling story; there is only the ability to chronicle events. It was not engaging whatsoever. The story of Sam’s search for his cousin was a good one, but told in the journalistic style was a slog. That Polish people killed Jewish people is devastating, and that’s what I will take from this book.
August 29, 2024
A very interesting story - really liked this book! It gave yet another new perspective of WWII and the Holocaust that I have not heard about before. I liked the detective angle of the story by the author – and it was intriguing to follow the author’s journey from her first trip to Poland in 1991 through 2022 – to see how the local landscape changed not only physically (the fall of Communism shortly before, to a very modern-day city and country) but how people’s ideas change regarding the stigmatism of the Holocaust and the relationship between Polish citizens/Jewish citizens…or how they don’t change.
We follow Sam Rakowsky and his cousin (author) Judy. Sam, a proud Polish Jew survived the Holocaust and then immigrates to the US. Only his parents, a sister and a nephew survived the war. Sam is told of a cousin who survived, from the husband of an old schoolmate in his hometown. Hena Rozenka, 16 years old along with her 3 siblings and parents had been hiding at a neighbor’s farm for 18 months. Close to the wars end in 1944 the family came out of hiding on a warm May evening for fresh air, only to be met by gunmen approaching the farm. Hena is in the woods watching the house – they threaten Pan Radziszewski, the man whose farm they are hiding at – yelling where are the Jews! But the gunmen are speaking Polish – not German, and she sees the men murder her family and bury them underneath a cherry tree. We see this first part of the book play out through Hena’s eyes, but then what does she do? Where does she go? Does she survive? The book follows Sam and Judy’s quest to find Hena through trips to Poland – did she survive and if she did where is she and who did she become?
They are met by much resistance – no one wants to talk about Hena even though it seems that some villagers remember her and might know what happened to her. One man knows that she was found and she testified at a trial for one of the men accused of killing her family, but it ends of being a dead end after she couldn’t or wouldn’t identify any of the men there that day. Many villagers simply say “nie, nie wiem” – no, I don’t know.
“Why not help the prince of the city find his lost cousin? Did they really not remember, did they not care, or was the taboo on such subjects stronger than anything, even empathy for an old man? What did they have to lose? I would later learn that the dynamic we observed in this village was quite pervasive. Something referred to as a “conspiracy of silence” regarding Polish-Jewish relations under communism has erected an impenetrable wall of memory resulting from the traumatic events and the sustained communist suppression of the discussion. Talking about it was not an option. Put another way…”They might want to help, but their primary instinct will be to protect their own community. The fact that some of them started talking and then stopped makes me think that there might be some sort of self-regulating spoken or unspoken solidarity that favors silence, rather than testimony.”
“Are people afraid of being found out what they did during the war? Or Communist regime afterward? Or same people Hela feared reprisals from? People might still live nearby?
Along the way they find out that another group of Sam and Judy’s relatives – the Dula’s were also in hiding – hid again by a local farmer Kazimierz Sodo. And again they find out that the entire family; Sam’s mom’s sister, husband and 3 kids were killed by Polish partisans. Sodo was beat up and forced to bury their bodies in the backyard.
Years later Sam returns with a film crew and is interviewed at the Sodo farm – now it is a niece (Danuta) that lives on this farm. It is clear during the interview that this is the first time she is hearing that her farm is a burial site of Jews killed during WWII.
Danuta volunteered, “We all know that these killers were not Germans. My dad told me that they beat Grandpa Kazimierz really hard. After they killed the people, they made him dig the pit and put the bodies in the ground. They threw him in this pit on top of the bodies and threatened to bury him alive.” … Her father tried to shield her, but the village’s ire did not diminish over time. ‘They were angry at my grandmother, grandfather, and my parents,” Danuta said. “They accused us of putting the whole village in danger” of German reprisals if they found the hiding Jews.
During 1997 film crew – “At school, I was ridiculed, taunted. They said we had Jews in the garden. But I never knew it was true.”
The community had shunned her family, not only to punishing her grandparents for trying to save five lives but holding a grudge against them for three generations.
While still trying to find out if Hena is still alive, they search for evidence of the Dula family and was anyone held accountable during or after the war? “We went looking for one live cousin, and instead we wound up with five dead ones.”
“On the way down from Warsaw, Sam had deliberated aloud about the historic sources of anti-Semitism. Farmers thought Jewish shopkeepers had it easier because they weren’t in the fields, even though Jews had been legally barred from agricultural enclaves and had to find other means of earning income. “Throughout history, the nobles had made Jews collect the tenants’ rent, which built up resentment against the middlemen rent collectors. Jews were literate because they were obligated to read the Torah, requiring parents to educate their children to fulfill the obligation. That literacy qualified the Jewish population for higher-paying occupations in commerce and banking. … Before the wary in 1939, Jews accounted for a sizable minority – 10 percent in a nation of 35 million. Warsaw was 30% Jewish, with 375,000 Jews. But after the population was wiped out, anti-Semitism in Poland persisted…the purges spurred Jewish flight, leaving about 8,000 Jews by 1972. At the time of our visit in 1991, 3,700 self-identified Jews lived in Poland, comprising .01 percent of the population.”
“The testimony painted a clear picture of the suspects’ utter disregard of Jews as people. I understood that by 1944, the Polish population had been under German occupation for five years, longer than any other country Hitler victimized. And we knew from Tadeusz Koziol’s book that one of the elderly residents he interviewed had run away from a forced-labor camp for Poles where he said the internees had been forced to participate in the Germans’ liquidation actions. The Germans had brutalized and starved the non-Jewish Polish populace. From the start of the war in 1939, Polish intellectuals were rounded up and killed or sent to concentration camps. The Germans constantly looted businesses, seized live-stock and crops from farmers across the country, and made no secret of regarding the Poles as not far above Jews on the ladder of Untermenschen. … One defendant claimed their unit’s purpose was searching for Jews who were ‘responsible for oppressing the local population.’ Dehumanizing the victim is and old tactic. But in wartime Poland, these killers had an extra motive to act because murder enabled them to steal Jews’ possessions and divide the spoils among themselves. “
We follow Sam Rakowsky and his cousin (author) Judy. Sam, a proud Polish Jew survived the Holocaust and then immigrates to the US. Only his parents, a sister and a nephew survived the war. Sam is told of a cousin who survived, from the husband of an old schoolmate in his hometown. Hena Rozenka, 16 years old along with her 3 siblings and parents had been hiding at a neighbor’s farm for 18 months. Close to the wars end in 1944 the family came out of hiding on a warm May evening for fresh air, only to be met by gunmen approaching the farm. Hena is in the woods watching the house – they threaten Pan Radziszewski, the man whose farm they are hiding at – yelling where are the Jews! But the gunmen are speaking Polish – not German, and she sees the men murder her family and bury them underneath a cherry tree. We see this first part of the book play out through Hena’s eyes, but then what does she do? Where does she go? Does she survive? The book follows Sam and Judy’s quest to find Hena through trips to Poland – did she survive and if she did where is she and who did she become?
They are met by much resistance – no one wants to talk about Hena even though it seems that some villagers remember her and might know what happened to her. One man knows that she was found and she testified at a trial for one of the men accused of killing her family, but it ends of being a dead end after she couldn’t or wouldn’t identify any of the men there that day. Many villagers simply say “nie, nie wiem” – no, I don’t know.
“Why not help the prince of the city find his lost cousin? Did they really not remember, did they not care, or was the taboo on such subjects stronger than anything, even empathy for an old man? What did they have to lose? I would later learn that the dynamic we observed in this village was quite pervasive. Something referred to as a “conspiracy of silence” regarding Polish-Jewish relations under communism has erected an impenetrable wall of memory resulting from the traumatic events and the sustained communist suppression of the discussion. Talking about it was not an option. Put another way…”They might want to help, but their primary instinct will be to protect their own community. The fact that some of them started talking and then stopped makes me think that there might be some sort of self-regulating spoken or unspoken solidarity that favors silence, rather than testimony.”
“Are people afraid of being found out what they did during the war? Or Communist regime afterward? Or same people Hela feared reprisals from? People might still live nearby?
Along the way they find out that another group of Sam and Judy’s relatives – the Dula’s were also in hiding – hid again by a local farmer Kazimierz Sodo. And again they find out that the entire family; Sam’s mom’s sister, husband and 3 kids were killed by Polish partisans. Sodo was beat up and forced to bury their bodies in the backyard.
Years later Sam returns with a film crew and is interviewed at the Sodo farm – now it is a niece (Danuta) that lives on this farm. It is clear during the interview that this is the first time she is hearing that her farm is a burial site of Jews killed during WWII.
Danuta volunteered, “We all know that these killers were not Germans. My dad told me that they beat Grandpa Kazimierz really hard. After they killed the people, they made him dig the pit and put the bodies in the ground. They threw him in this pit on top of the bodies and threatened to bury him alive.” … Her father tried to shield her, but the village’s ire did not diminish over time. ‘They were angry at my grandmother, grandfather, and my parents,” Danuta said. “They accused us of putting the whole village in danger” of German reprisals if they found the hiding Jews.
During 1997 film crew – “At school, I was ridiculed, taunted. They said we had Jews in the garden. But I never knew it was true.”
The community had shunned her family, not only to punishing her grandparents for trying to save five lives but holding a grudge against them for three generations.
While still trying to find out if Hena is still alive, they search for evidence of the Dula family and was anyone held accountable during or after the war? “We went looking for one live cousin, and instead we wound up with five dead ones.”
“On the way down from Warsaw, Sam had deliberated aloud about the historic sources of anti-Semitism. Farmers thought Jewish shopkeepers had it easier because they weren’t in the fields, even though Jews had been legally barred from agricultural enclaves and had to find other means of earning income. “Throughout history, the nobles had made Jews collect the tenants’ rent, which built up resentment against the middlemen rent collectors. Jews were literate because they were obligated to read the Torah, requiring parents to educate their children to fulfill the obligation. That literacy qualified the Jewish population for higher-paying occupations in commerce and banking. … Before the wary in 1939, Jews accounted for a sizable minority – 10 percent in a nation of 35 million. Warsaw was 30% Jewish, with 375,000 Jews. But after the population was wiped out, anti-Semitism in Poland persisted…the purges spurred Jewish flight, leaving about 8,000 Jews by 1972. At the time of our visit in 1991, 3,700 self-identified Jews lived in Poland, comprising .01 percent of the population.”
“The testimony painted a clear picture of the suspects’ utter disregard of Jews as people. I understood that by 1944, the Polish population had been under German occupation for five years, longer than any other country Hitler victimized. And we knew from Tadeusz Koziol’s book that one of the elderly residents he interviewed had run away from a forced-labor camp for Poles where he said the internees had been forced to participate in the Germans’ liquidation actions. The Germans had brutalized and starved the non-Jewish Polish populace. From the start of the war in 1939, Polish intellectuals were rounded up and killed or sent to concentration camps. The Germans constantly looted businesses, seized live-stock and crops from farmers across the country, and made no secret of regarding the Poles as not far above Jews on the ladder of Untermenschen. … One defendant claimed their unit’s purpose was searching for Jews who were ‘responsible for oppressing the local population.’ Dehumanizing the victim is and old tactic. But in wartime Poland, these killers had an extra motive to act because murder enabled them to steal Jews’ possessions and divide the spoils among themselves. “
April 20, 2024
In Portland OR there is a group whose goal is "memory activism," a group that started in order to keep the memory of Vanport, a WWII town built to house shipbuilders for Kaiser that got flooded out one Memorial Day. They have since added other local groups and places to the list of memories to keep alive. "Memory activism" is a good category for Jews in the Garden, a book that strives to keep alive the memory of WWII Polish Jews who were murdered, the folks who tried to shelter them, the folks who betrayed them, and the Poles who murdered them. The problem is both traditional and legal. There is a tradition of loyalty to fellow Poles that causes people to not tell who of their neighbors might have been Partisans--some of whom really did resistance work while others had enough of their own antisemitism to kill fellow Poles without orders from the German occupiers. Recent laws made it illegal to speak ill of fellow Poles in WWII in order to keep untarnished the myth of the innocent Poles, the heroic Poles.
This history is told through the search of Sam, who once lived in a Polish village and whose father owned a large lumbar yard that processed lumber in many of the homes in the area. He seeks out people he once was friends with, hoping they can give him information about his dead relatives and their would-be saviors. His motive includes to thank the latter. Judy, the writer, accompanies Sam on many of these trips and does searches in her own way as a journalist. Most of the telling is vivid and engaging. There are a couple chapters about documentation searches and laws that don't seem to fit until later chapters where the silence of the locals is ascribed to the laws. They could have been made more relevant with better transitions. But that is only a couple chapters in an otherwise engaging book.
For those of us whose knowledge of history is mostly western European, this book is an important read.
This history is told through the search of Sam, who once lived in a Polish village and whose father owned a large lumbar yard that processed lumber in many of the homes in the area. He seeks out people he once was friends with, hoping they can give him information about his dead relatives and their would-be saviors. His motive includes to thank the latter. Judy, the writer, accompanies Sam on many of these trips and does searches in her own way as a journalist. Most of the telling is vivid and engaging. There are a couple chapters about documentation searches and laws that don't seem to fit until later chapters where the silence of the locals is ascribed to the laws. They could have been made more relevant with better transitions. But that is only a couple chapters in an otherwise engaging book.
For those of us whose knowledge of history is mostly western European, this book is an important read.
July 14, 2023
Princess Fuzzypants here: In spite of the title, this is a sad tale of loss and discovery and the ordeals of finding the truth when those who might know it, want to hide it because of pride. Holocaust survivor Sam and his young cousin Judy journey back to Poland. Sam’s experiences during the war are harrowing but he was one of the lucky ones. He was able to live and build a good life in both Israel and the US. But what haunted Sam was what happened to other family members. He and Judy made it their mission to find one particular woman who witnessed the murder of the rest of her family in the village where they, mistakenly, thought they were accepted members of the community.
It would have been easier to pull teeth of a wide awake grizzly bear than what they faced. Even those whose relatives had risked all to protect and save Jews were unwilling to talk. They had been ostracized both during the war and afterwards by their neighbours for their humanity. When particles of truth were uncovered, it told a terrible story. Much of the murder was not perpetrated by the Germans. It was factions of Poles, some of whom had been lauded as partisans and patriots who committed the acts against Sam’s family. And because the myth that all Poles fought against the Germans and did their bit to save Jews was so important to the Polish self image, it was not until decades later the facts dribbled out. There were some “righteous” Poles. Sadly endemic antisemitism was stronger and more pervasive.
It is not an easy book to read. I found myself angered and moved deeply. But it is an important story that deserves to be told lest history repeats itself. Four purrs and two paws up.
It would have been easier to pull teeth of a wide awake grizzly bear than what they faced. Even those whose relatives had risked all to protect and save Jews were unwilling to talk. They had been ostracized both during the war and afterwards by their neighbours for their humanity. When particles of truth were uncovered, it told a terrible story. Much of the murder was not perpetrated by the Germans. It was factions of Poles, some of whom had been lauded as partisans and patriots who committed the acts against Sam’s family. And because the myth that all Poles fought against the Germans and did their bit to save Jews was so important to the Polish self image, it was not until decades later the facts dribbled out. There were some “righteous” Poles. Sadly endemic antisemitism was stronger and more pervasive.
It is not an easy book to read. I found myself angered and moved deeply. But it is an important story that deserves to be told lest history repeats itself. Four purrs and two paws up.
November 9, 2023
Judy Rakowsky follows her uncle Sam to Poland where he searches for Hena, a long-lost relative who survived the Holocaust. Hena and her Jewish family received shelter for 18 months until Polish terrorists murdered her family during WW2. But despite first-hand accounts of the incident, no one will share details that can help the searchers complete their quest. So, Judy puts her journalist skills to work and investigates the mystery. This book chronicles the steps she takes to uncover the truth about the Jews in the garden. In the process, she uncovers hidden details about her family history, develops lasting friendships and gains a deeper understanding of politics in Poland at the time and since.
I really liked the opening chapter. It shares the story of Hena's escape. And then the rest of the book turns into a narrative of Judy and Sam's investigation. It plods along slowly and isn't very engaging.
The end offers some redemption as the author recounts the city's inaugural Jewish festival. After all, Poland presents to the world that its people saved more Jews than citizens of any other country, but Poles also murdered Jews in surprising numbers.
I also liked the analysis of the politics in Poland. Communism forced people to keep quiet and keep secrets. But at what cost? And how does that trauma affect people today? That part of the story fascinated me.
I really liked the opening chapter. It shares the story of Hena's escape. And then the rest of the book turns into a narrative of Judy and Sam's investigation. It plods along slowly and isn't very engaging.
The end offers some redemption as the author recounts the city's inaugural Jewish festival. After all, Poland presents to the world that its people saved more Jews than citizens of any other country, but Poles also murdered Jews in surprising numbers.
I also liked the analysis of the politics in Poland. Communism forced people to keep quiet and keep secrets. But at what cost? And how does that trauma affect people today? That part of the story fascinated me.
July 13, 2023
I received a copy of this book from the goodread's giveaway. I would give it a 3.5. The book briefly begins in 1944. Poland is going through World War two and the Holocaust. Hena Rozenka hides when her whole family is killed. they had been hiding on a farm and they were found. The rest of the book ranges from 1991 to the present. Judy Rakowsky learns from her older cousin Sam Rakowsky of the many family members who were killed in the Holocaust. it was found one member survived her name was Hena Rozenka. for the next thirty years Judy Rowosky tries to find out if Hena is alive and what happened to her. For many of the trips cousin Sam goes with her. They spend a lot time visiting parts of Poland where Sam lived {he managed to escape Poland in his late teens and ended up in the USA} Sam and Judy try to track down what happened to Hena. did she survive the Holocaust? Where did she end up? there is a lot of sluething to figure out what became of Hena. This is an okay book. I kind of felt some sympathy for the different people who when asking questions of the Holocaust and asking them to recall those times. It had to have been hard for them to talk about a time they may not have wanted to discuss. anyway an okay read.
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