A masterpiece of post-war Polish literature, Stone Upon Stone is Wiesław Myśliwski’s grand epic in the rural tradition—a profound and irreverent stream of memory cutting through the rich and varied terrain of one man’s connection to the land, to his family and community, to women, to tradition, to God, to death, and to what it means to be alive.Wise and impetuous, plainspoken and compassionate Szymek, recalls his youth in their village, his time as a guerrilla soldier, as a wedding official, barber, policeman, lover, drinker, and caretaker for his invalid brother.Filled with interwoven stories and voices, by turns hilarious and moving, Szymek’s narrative exudes the profound wisdom of one who has suffered, yet who loves life to the very core.

    Using toolboxes, ambulances, and other ingenious measures, Irena Sendler defied the Nazis and risked her own life by saving and then hiding Jewish children. Her secret list of the children's real identities was kept safe, buried in two jars under a tree in war-torn Warsaw. An inspiring story of courage and compassion, this biography includes a list of resources, source notes, and an index.

    

    Compiled by inhabitants of the ghetto and illustrated with more than seventy haunting photographs, the Chronicle is a document unparalleled among writings on the Holocaust."A remarkable piece of testimony. To read it is to pay the dead the small tribute of remembrance, and to be devastated by a picture of a particular and terrible hell."—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times"The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto tears at the mind and heart and leaves a dark and numbing rage in the center of the soul."—Chaim Potok, The Philadelphia Inquirer"Fascinating, disturbing."—Elie Wiesel, The New York Times Book Review"[Dobroszycki] has done a major service not only to historians and students of the Holocaust, but to all those, both Jews and non-Jews, who are interested in how a tyrannical regime can exploit, starve, and deceive tens of thousands of intelligent, articulate people in time of war."—Martin Gilbert, The New York Review of Books"Sober yet unforgettably vivid."—S.S. Prawer, Times Literary Supplement"A milestone in Holocaust studies. Its wealth of information and accuracy, and the systematic manner in which it was compiled, makes in an unequalled source on the history of the destruction of European Jewry."—Alexander Zvielli, The Jerusalem Post Magazine"Well worth reading as a record of extremes of human experience."—Majorie Meehan, M.D., American Journal of Psychiatry"Dr. Dobroszycki is a survivor of the ghetto. He is also a trained historian with a sophisticated, finely honed mind. No one knows as much about these records as he does. No one understands them better."—Raul HilbergLucjan Dobroszycki is a historian at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and Yeshiva University.

    The new introduction and epilogue make the book especially valuable in teaching United States history survey courses as well as immigration history and introductory sociology courses.

    The story of this large, middle-class Jewish family is also the story of a deeply-rooted Jewish community and its considerable cultural and material achievements, until disaster struck and it was wiped off the face of the earth. At the beginning of the century, Krakow was under Austrian rule. The mother of the family died, leaving a husband and eight children. A different destiny awaited each of the them, each story reflecting the options which faced Polish Jews at that time. With the outbreak of the First World War, the eldest son joined the army and was sent to the Italian front. He returned a broken man, and died shortly afterwards. The second son married happily, became a successful lumber merchant and a paterfamilias. He veered between Jewish and European culture and regarded Poland as his homeland. One of the sisters, a natural rebel, fell in love with a Polish non-Jew. When he abandoned her, she became a Zionist and immigrated to Eretz Israel. Her older sister was happily married to an old-style religious Jew. Another sister married an assimilated Jew and was uncertain as to her national identity, while the fourth fell in love with a Communist. Their prosperous brother had three children two daughters and a son who enjoyed life in independent Poland between the wars. When the Germans invaded Poland, the family missed the last train out and with it the chance to be saved. Most of the family perished in the Holocaust.