Beneath White Stars: Holocaust Profiles In Poetry

by Holly Mandelkern, Byron Marshall (Illustrator)

Overview

Original narrative poems, historical accounts, with black and white, pen and ink illustrations.

Beneath White Stars features Holly's narrative poetry about real people from the Holocaust whom she has known personally or whose stories she has taught. Melding historical detail and keen insights with the grace of poetry, she brings to life a wide variety of individuals struggling against the horrors of the Holocaust. In these pages children are sent from home to face new lands alone, teens risk their lives to resist in ghettos and forests, prisoners rise above the miseries of ghettos and concentration camps through art, and diplomats and clergy employ their wiles to save all those they can. Brief biographical sketches, maps, and a personalized timeline further animate these courageous individuals.

Illuminated by Byron Marshall's black and white, pen and ink drawings, Beneath White Stars: Holocaust Profiles in Poetry opens a unique window on bright lights that shone even in the darkest of times.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780998498904
Publisher:	Almondseed Press
Publication date:	04/10/2017
Pages:	254
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.53(d)

Table of Contents

Contents Preface xv A Conversation with My Reader xvii Departures Heartbeats 3 The Small World of Little Fritz 5 Watching Myself Watch My Son 7 Crosscurrents 9 I Am That Child 11 Transported 13 A Place for Us? 15 Packing Her Bag 19 Watching My Daughter Pack Her Bag 21 Lost and Found 23 Praying in Pencil Between the Lines 39 Parallel Limbs 47 You Never Saw Another Butterfly 49 Overdue: Book Reports, May-September 1944 51 Lines in Space 53 So the World Would Know 57 Lost and Found 59 Standing in Blood Bowl of Soup 73 His Overtures of Love 75 Timing Is Everything 77 History Lessons 79 Chanka Garfinkel: Guarding the Memories 81 Telltale Lines 85 The Standing Prayer 87 No Art 89 Patzan 91 "Unter dayne vayse shtern": A Sonnet for Sutzkever 95 Sutzkever's Stars 97 L'Chaim 99 A Glezele Tei 101 Lost and Found 103 Rescue Mr. Sugihara's Eyes 125 Kissing the Wall 129 The Likeness of a Man 133 A Crowd of Hosts 135 Risen and Rescued 137 Lost and Found 139 Roundups Uprooted 151 Feathers 155 The Witness Stands 157 Memories in Color 161 Misericordia for the Last Jews of Busk, Ukraine 165 Lost and Found 167 Close Connections Recounting 185 Close Connections: 1938-1946 187 An Unexpected Afterword 192 Timeline: Key Events for People in the Poems 194 Note about the Typeface for the Hebrew Word Zachor 207 Acknowledgments 209 References 215

Editorial Reviews

"Everyone in the field of Holocaust Studies, education, and remembrance is asking the same question: After the last survivor is no longer, who will remember, who will tell their stories? In powerful poetry, brief historical explanations, and moving sketches, Holly Mandelkern has shown that it is possible to become a witness to the witnesses and thus to convey their stories in another powerful format to a new generation. Having been privileged to know many of the survivors and witnesses she portrays, I was impressed with the depth of her knowledge and moved by the authenticity of her testimony."
-MICHAEL BERENBAUM, Professor of Jewish Studies, American Jewish University, and former Project Director, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

"Beneath White Stars is a marvelous, imaginative, and hallowed remembering of the Shoah that illustrates the poet's gift for evoking the unutterable within the rhythms of loss, deprivation, and the reclamation of human dignity."
-REVEREND MARK FORRESTER, University Chaplain and Director of Religious Life at Vanderbilt University

"A sensational read, bringing history to life in a poetic form, humane and edifying, touching the heart and mind."
-TESS WISE, survivor, Holocaust scholar, and founder of the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida

"I've been a Holocaust educator for almost forty years. Even with this background, there were new people whom I was privileged to 'meet' in this magnificent book. These poems touched my heart."
-RABBI FRED GUTTMAN, Mid-Atlantic Regional Director of the International March of the Living and Senior Rabbi of Temple Emanuel in Greensboro, NC

"Just when we think that everything has been written about the Holocaust, Holly Mandelkern presents this meditation on the subject that allows readers to feel events in a new way. Holly's poems and lovingly rendered text take readers by the hand and in an intimate way lead us into the personal reality of each individual's life."
-Philip M. Smith, PhD, Department of History, Texas A&M University

"In a spectrum of soundings, forms, and styles, we are restored the voices of man, woman, and child, multiplied by millions... Holly Mandelkern's scholarship and mastery of verse elevate the hardest, and often most poignant, lessons of life, death, and life again."
-AL ROCHELEAU, author of On Writing Poetry

"Through this poetry, we are able to sense the life and indomitable spirit of the persecuted."
- HENRY BIRNBREY, survivor and Holocaust educator, Breman Museum, Atlanta, GA

"The poems bring to life a chorus of varied voices portraying in fine, poetic fashion life's lessons in survival, recovery, and redemption. These powerfully spiritual voices come to life, remain memorable."
-STEPHEN CALDWELL WRIGHT, PhD, poet and educator, President and Founder of the Gwendolyn Brooks Writers Association of Florida

"Historical context and original illustrations accompanying her poems provide a unique and valuable resource for Holocaust students of all ages."
-HARRIET SEPINWALL, EdD, Professor Emerita, College of Saint Elizabeth Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education, Morristown, NJ

From the Publisher