May God Avenge Their Blood: A Holocaust Memoir Triptych

by Rachmil Bryks, Yermiyahu Ahron Taub (Translator), Bella Bryks-Klein (Afterword), Yermiyahu Ahron Taub (Afterword)

Overview

May God Avenge Their Blood: a Holocaust Memoir Triptych presents three memoirs by the Yiddish writer Rachmil Bryks (1912–1974). In "Those Who Didn't Survive," Bryks portrays inter-war life in his shtetl Skarżysko-Kamienna, Poland with great flair and rich anthropological detail, rendering a haunting collective portrait of an annihilated community. "The Fugitives" vividly charts the confusion and terror of the early days of World War II in the industrial city of Łódź and elsewhere. In the final memoir, "From Agony to Life," Bryks tells of his imprisonment in Auschwitz and other camps. Taken together, the triptych takes the reader on a wide-ranging journey from Hasidic life before the Holocaust to the chaos of the early days of war and then to the horrors of Nazi captivity. This translation by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub brings the extraordinary memoirs of an important Yiddish writer to English-language readers for the first time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781793621023
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	05/20/2020
Series:	Lexington Studies in Jewish Literature
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.34(w) x 9.08(h) x 0.92(d)

About the Author

Rachmil Bryks was author of seven Yiddish-language books and contributed extensively to the Yiddish press.

Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is a poet, writer, and translator, and is the recipient of the 2012 Yiddish Book Center Translation Prize and the 2014–2017 Modern Language Association’s Fenia and Yaakov Leviant Memorial Prize in Yiddish Studies.

Table of Contents

1. Those Who Didn’t Survive

A Letter from Nobel Laureate S.Y. Agnon

1. The Fugitives

My Sacred Obligation by Hinde Bryks

A Few Observations by Berl Kagan

1.This Is How It All Began

2.Fugitives

3.A Gas Nightmare

4.I Take Flight

5.Warsaw Bound

6.My Return to Łódź

7.In German Captivity

8.Theft, Torment, Murders

9.We’re Transferred to Germany

10. We’re Taken from the Camp—But Where?

11. In a Camp Near Kraków

12. In Camp Kobiezshin

13.Freedom Gained

14.In Skarżysko-Kamienna—New Troubles

15.In Koluszki

16.We Arrive in Łódź

17.At Home with Mordecai Gebirtig

18.Visit to Josef Wulf

1. From Agony to Life

1.Deportation to Auschwitz

2.Transport to Germany

3.In Other Concentration Camps

4.The Wild Beast

5.The First Weeks

6.Laundry Day

7.A Gallows

8.New Germans, New Troubles

9. Episodes and Characters

10.Return to Camp Braunschweig

11.In Camp Wattenstadt

12.From “Switzerland” to a Death Camp

13.We’re Liberated



Papa, As I Remember Him by Bella Bryks-Klein

Rachmil Bryks: an Appreciation by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub

Dramatis Personae

Glossary

Translator’s Notes

Translator’s Acknowledgments

About the Author

About the Translator

About the Author’s Daughter

Editorial Reviews

A searing set of memoirs that illuminates life in a twentieth-century shtetl and the Jewish struggle for survival in wartime Łódź and in the camps. Yermiyahu Ahron Taub’s sensitive translation provides English-language readers with an opportunity to wander the same memoryscapes that Yiddish readers of Rachmil Bryks have long inhabited.

Justin Cammy

Highly recommended!

Association of Jewish Libraries Reviews

Bryks, the author of this Holocaust memoir, was among the most important writers in Yiddish literature. This is the first English translation of his travails as a prisoner of the Nazis, from his time in the Łódź ghetto from 1940 to 1944, to his subsequent deportation to Auschwitz and his later imprisonment in other concentration camps. A writer in the humanistic tradition, Bryks's tribulation under the Nazis reveals a writer focused on the humanity of his fellow prisoners and the evil he encountered among his captors. The triptych memoir is written in almost documentary prose, first detailing his life in the Polish shtetl Skarżysko-Kamienna, where he describes the folkways and traditions of an orthodox Jewish community that the Nazis would soon destroy. Thrust into the Łódź ghetto in May 1940, the author and his fellow Jews faced uncertainty, confusion, and physical hardship. In recounting his incarceration in Auschwitz, Bryks is relentless in his descriptions of mass starvation, illness, and the fear of imminent death, but also of moments of connection and courage amid these extreme conditions. Following his liberation, Bryks found his way to the US, where he raised a family and continued to publish his poems and other works in Yiddish. The memoir also includes an invaluable glossary. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, graduate students, faculty, and professionals.

Choice Reviews

Rachmil Bryks's memoirs contains masterful story telling about the author's experiences during the Second World War ranging from meeting with the famed lyricist and poet Mordecai Gebirtig to dark depictions of his days in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. He shares not only his own story but also that of countless other individuals who he encountered during the war. Yermiyahu Ahron Taub has rendered a beautiful translation, which really retains the lyrical quality of Rachmil Bryks's writing.

Helene Sinnreich

...For the many readers who have never heard of Bryk, I beseech you to get this volume. You are likely tofeel as I do, that here is a rare thing, a genuine writer who is ours, writes in Yiddish, although the material belongs to all humanity.

Read the full review here: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2233&context=ree

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe - Brian Horowitz

These memoirs comprise a significant addition to the first-person accounts of the Holocaust available in English, particularly in their depiction of the very early and late stages of the war. Bryks’s sharply observed characters and narrative drive, enhanced by Taub’s fluid translation and helpful notes, make the text compelling and accessible for students and the general public. Each of the three sections reflects a distinct aspect of the Holocaust and could be assigned independently, enhancing the volume’s utility in teaching. At the same time, the appendices and afterwords provide background on Bryks’s life and work and thus enhance its value as a resource for scholars. One may hope that this book will inspire further translations from the voluminous Holocaust literature in Yiddish that remains largely unknown, and for which this excellent volume can serve as a model.

Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Translator Yermiyahu Ahron Taub has crafted an English version of Bryks’ work which flows seamlessly and at the same time preserves the stylistic nuances of Bryks’ unique prose. Thoroughly useful is the glossary of personalities mentioned in the text. In the epilogue, the reader is also privy to an affectionate personal portrait of Rachmil Bryks, written by his daughter, Bella Bryks-Klein. Indeed, this new edition is a respectful tribute to a remarkable man and important Yiddish writer who himself embodied the destroyed civilization of Polish Jewry.

Forward

May God Avenge Their Blood isn’t the same as other Holocaust memoirs. Rachmil Bryks describes his experiences in the camps but also offers an evocative description of the Jewish community destroyed by the Nazis. Bryks’ warm portrayal of Jewish life in Skarżysko-Kamienna reveals a society rich in tradition while in the midst of significant change. Tales of Talmud study stand alongside stories of elopement and entrepreneurship. Bryks’ depiction of the first weeks of the war, the second and longest section of this triptych, is unforgettable. Notably, Bryks describes everyone he encounters—Jews, Poles, Germans, peasants, writers, and others—with a deep empathy. May God Avenge Their Blood is perhaps most useful for anyone interested in interpersonal relations. Bryks’s stories often confirm the deep antisemitism among many Poles but they also show many examples of human kindness. Bryks offers no analysis or final judgements, simply a description of what happened. Taub’s achievement as a translator is more

than the rendering of a text into a language more of us understand; it is an offering of a neglected source as a guide to a tragic past.

Sean Martin

Rachmil Bryks was one of the most talented young poets and authors who survived the Łódź ghetto and concentration camps. Author of poetry and short stories, Bryks uses his writing to recreate and evoke the beauty, struggle, humor, and tragedy of Jewish life in prewar and wartime Poland. Describing the numerous members of his extended family and their neighbors, he paints them realistically and warmly and not uncritically, so that the reader becomes invested in those hardworking, talkative, pious, humorous and argumentative Jews, who were virtually all brutally and cruelly murdered by the Germans and their henchmen. This is a short, but very worthy sampling of Bryks's writings that have not been previously available in English. Highly recommended.

Robert Moses Shapiro

Bryks, the author of this Holocaust memoir, was among the most important writers in Yiddish literature. This is the first English translation of his travails as a prisoner of the Nazis, from his time in the Łódź ghetto from 1940 to 1944, to his subsequent deportation to Auschwitz and his later imprisonment in other concentration camps. A writer in the humanistic tradition, Bryks's tribulation under the Nazis reveals a writer focused on the humanity of his fellow prisoners and the evil he encountered among his captors. The triptych memoir is written in almost documentary prose, first detailing his life in the Polish shtetl Skarżysko-Kamienna, where he describes the folkways and traditions of an orthodox Jewish community that the Nazis would soon destroy. Thrust into the Łódź ghetto in May 1940, the author and his fellow Jews faced uncertainty, confusion, and physical hardship. In recounting his incarceration in Auschwitz, Bryks is relentless in his descriptions of mass starvation, illness, and the fear of imminent death, but also of moments of connection and courage amid these extreme conditions. Following his liberation, Bryks found his way to the US, where he raised a family and continued to publish his poems and other works in Yiddish. The memoir also includes an invaluable glossary. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, graduate students, faculty, and professionals.

Choice

Bryks, the author of this Holocaust memoir, was among the most important writers in Yiddish literature. This is the first English translation of his travails as a prisoner of the Nazis, from his time in the Łódź ghetto from 1940 to 1944, to his subsequent deportation to Auschwitz and his later imprisonment in other concentration camps. A writer in the humanistic tradition, Bryks's tribulation under the Nazis reveals a writer focused on the humanity of his fellow prisoners and the evil he encountered among his captors. The triptych memoir is written in almost documentary prose, first detailing his life in the Polish shtetl Skarżysko-Kamienna, where he describes the folkways and traditions of an orthodox Jewish community that the Nazis would soon destroy. Thrust into the Łódź ghetto in May 1940, the author and his fellow Jews faced uncertainty, confusion, and physical hardship. In recounting his incarceration in Auschwitz, Bryks is relentless in his descriptions of mass starvation, illness, and the fear of imminent death, but also of moments of connection and courage amid these extreme conditions. Following his liberation, Bryks found his way to the US, where he raised a family and continued to publish his poems and other works in Yiddish. The memoir also includes an invaluable glossary. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, graduate students, faculty, and professionals.

CHOICE