After the Holocaust the Bells Still Ring
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2015 National Jewish Book Award: Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir
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- Michael S. Gordon c/o Gordon Publishing Services
More About This Title After the Holocaust the Bells Still Ring
- English
English
This memoir is a fascinating portrait of mother and child who miraculously survive two concentration camps, then, after the war, battle demons of the past, societal rejection, disbelief, and invalidation as they struggle to reenter the world of the living. It is the tale of how one newly takes on the world, having lived in the midst of corpses strewn about in the scores of thousands, and how one can possibly resume life in the aftermath of such experiences. It is the story of the child who decides, upon growing up, that the only career that makes sense for him in light of these years of horror is to become someone sensitive to the deepest flaws of humanity, a teacher of God’s role in history amidst the traditions that attempt to understand it—and to become a rabbi. Readers will not emerge unscathed from this searing work, written by a distinguished, Boston-based rabbi and academic.
- English
English
Joseph Polak is an infant survivor of the Holocaust, during which time he was a prisoner at two concentration camps: Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen.
He has published extensively in leading popular and scholarly periodicals and newspapers, including the Boston Globe, Commentary, Jewish Law Studies, Judaism, and Tradition. He is an assistant professor of public health (health law) at the Boston University School of Public Health; the rabbi emeritus of the Florence and Chafetz Hillel House at Boston University; and the chief justice at the Rabbinical Court of Massachusetts. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Elie Wiesel was a Romanian-born Holocaust survivor, author of 57 books, and winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize."
He has published extensively in leading popular and scholarly periodicals and newspapers, including the Boston Globe, Commentary, Jewish Law Studies, Judaism, and Tradition. He is an assistant professor of public health (health law) at the Boston University School of Public Health; the rabbi emeritus of the Florence and Chafetz Hillel House at Boston University; and the chief justice at the Rabbinical Court of Massachusetts. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Elie Wiesel was a Romanian-born Holocaust survivor, author of 57 books, and winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize."
- English
English
“This gem of a book, 70 years in the making, is already a classic, riveting in what it reveals, in the questions it releases. Polak’s insights into the human soul are as profound as any of the authors of nonfiction or fiction whose work I’ve read, cherished, reread. So often, I just sat quietly for a long while with a single sentence as its power penetrated and continued to reverberate. This author’s writing is extraordinary – it has the sure breathtaking tempo, evocative imagery and courage of poetry at its best. Polak has allowed us into the innermost sanctum of his life’s journey whose center is occupied by the Holocaust which demolished the world that should have been his and substituted a lifetime of questioning meaning, of running and hiding from pre-verbal memory, of searching for a way to keep living and shoulder the burden of witness.”
-- Merle Feld, playwright, poet, author of A Spiritual Life and Finding Words
"After the Holocaust the Bells Still Ring is a beautifully written, evocative memoir. In parts, it’s also a theosophical dialogue, staging discussions between the narrator and the Angel of Death on the timeless question of theodicy: how can an omnipotent and omniscient God allow such horrific suffering of children, of innocents?....This narrative is also an educational text. It makes pedagogical bridges with new generations of readers......It has a beautiful, authentic and often lyrical style. At times, it reminded me of Marguerite Duras’ writing: vivid yet also vaguely suggestive; drawing out the philosophical implications of sensory descriptions; versatile in the way it reaches out to its readers. Memoir, philosophical and religious treatise, oratory, history lesson and literary text: you will find all this and more in Joseph Polak’s After the Holocaust the Bells Still Ring."
--- Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon
“Joseph Polak’s memoir is a unique document, riveting and unnerving. All Holocaust memoirs describe not only what happened but also the survivor’s terrible search for bearings. But as one who survived the Holocaust at age two, Polak has nothing to grasp hold of. He is as skeptical of his own survival as we are. Polak’s great contribution is exploring the Holocaust not by way of what he remembers but rather by way of what he has been told, read, and discovered. He then pieces together his remarkable story devoid of sentimentality—a distinguishing trait of the best memoirs. But Polak’s is again unique in chronicling what he has been told of arrest, deportation, and camps together with the austere post-reunions and the more recent returns to the European sites. The story of his and his mother’s postwar experiences actually traces the brutal legacy of the Holocaust itself. Finally, he interrogates his experience in unflinching terms, letting neither God nor man off the hook. Readers are generally interested in survival stories. In this case, they will want to see how it was possible for a toddler to survive what most adults could not. How did it happen? And how did he come to know about it? It has all the elements of a detective story and fantasy tale together. The story is so fantastic that, as Polak himself says, it goes against what we know of the Holocaust and the concentration camps. Every page teaches the reader something new, in language that is fresh and original.”
—Alan Rosen, PhD, author, The Wonder of their Voices
-- Merle Feld, playwright, poet, author of A Spiritual Life and Finding Words
"After the Holocaust the Bells Still Ring is a beautifully written, evocative memoir. In parts, it’s also a theosophical dialogue, staging discussions between the narrator and the Angel of Death on the timeless question of theodicy: how can an omnipotent and omniscient God allow such horrific suffering of children, of innocents?....This narrative is also an educational text. It makes pedagogical bridges with new generations of readers......It has a beautiful, authentic and often lyrical style. At times, it reminded me of Marguerite Duras’ writing: vivid yet also vaguely suggestive; drawing out the philosophical implications of sensory descriptions; versatile in the way it reaches out to its readers. Memoir, philosophical and religious treatise, oratory, history lesson and literary text: you will find all this and more in Joseph Polak’s After the Holocaust the Bells Still Ring."
--- Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon
“Joseph Polak’s memoir is a unique document, riveting and unnerving. All Holocaust memoirs describe not only what happened but also the survivor’s terrible search for bearings. But as one who survived the Holocaust at age two, Polak has nothing to grasp hold of. He is as skeptical of his own survival as we are. Polak’s great contribution is exploring the Holocaust not by way of what he remembers but rather by way of what he has been told, read, and discovered. He then pieces together his remarkable story devoid of sentimentality—a distinguishing trait of the best memoirs. But Polak’s is again unique in chronicling what he has been told of arrest, deportation, and camps together with the austere post-reunions and the more recent returns to the European sites. The story of his and his mother’s postwar experiences actually traces the brutal legacy of the Holocaust itself. Finally, he interrogates his experience in unflinching terms, letting neither God nor man off the hook. Readers are generally interested in survival stories. In this case, they will want to see how it was possible for a toddler to survive what most adults could not. How did it happen? And how did he come to know about it? It has all the elements of a detective story and fantasy tale together. The story is so fantastic that, as Polak himself says, it goes against what we know of the Holocaust and the concentration camps. Every page teaches the reader something new, in language that is fresh and original.”
—Alan Rosen, PhD, author, The Wonder of their Voices
