Sheva's Promise: A Chronicle of Escape From a Nazi Ghetto

by Sylvia Lederman

Overview

In this gripping memoir, Lederman tells her story of survival during one of the most horrific episodes in history. Beginning with Lederman as a young girl in Poland in 1941, Sheva's Promise traces her experience in a Nazi ghetto with her mother and sister. Resolved that she must avoid the detention camp to help her family, Lederman obtains a false birth certificate and escapes the ghetto. Through the courage and humanity of a few individuals, she finds work in a hospital in Germany under an assumed identity. With fierce determination and resourcefulness, Lederman manages to elude Nazi capture and eventually immigrates to the United States with her husband. Sheva's Promise is not only an invaluable piece of historical record but also the work of a gifted writer whose keen eye for detail and skillful attention to language gives readers an unforgettable story.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815610182
Publisher:	Syracuse University Press
Publication date:	05/29/2013
Pages:	262
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Sylvia Lederman worked in the garment industry and spent the rest of her life in Queens, New York. She was known for being a caring and compassionate person who kept ties to her roots in her native Poland by becoming a member of two expatriate societies, the Rohatyn Society and the Lodzier Society, both fellowships of people from Poland. Her life's work was to publish this memoir so the story told within would never be forgotten.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

1 The Gathering Storm 1

2 The First Akcja 21

3 The Face of Hate 36

4 The Second Akcja 51

5 A Counterfeit life 66

6 Into the Unknown, Alone 111

7 A Perilous Refuge 139

8 From the Jaws of Death 161

9 Hanka, the Nurses Aide 193

10 At Last-The Liberation! 231

Editorial Reviews

A young woman questions the morality of her survival in this stunning Holocaust testimony by Sylvia Lederman. How can she love her family while leaving them behind? How can she accept help from other families at the risk of their lives? How can she be true to herself while living under a false identity? In the end, there is no purpose but surviving to tell the story, and this she does in graceful and shattering prose.

Lorrie Greenhouse Gardella

The author has strikingly portrayed the relationship between a hidden Jewish young woman and her rescuers. Her theological and psychological ruminations are heartbreaking and simultaneously portray her own coping skills and resilience. Time is running out and the story must be told before it is too late.

Florida Atlantic University Alan L. Berger