Non­fic­tion

I Choose Life: Two Linked Sto­ries of Holo­caust Sur­vival and Rebirth

Jer­ry L. Jen­nings and Sol and Goldie Finkel­stein, with Joseph S. Finkelstein
  • Review
By – September 9, 2011
With this book the read­er gets three sto­ries in one — two befor­es” and one after.” First, a Sol sto­ry, and then a Goldie sto­ry, but once mar­ried, their sto­ry is a sin­gle nar­ra­tive. Both main­tained unusu­al courage and con­vic­tion that they would sur­vive. Goldie was very pret­ty and remark­ably self­as­sured. When an SS guard gave her par­ents a choice of which of their two daugh­ters would be put on the train to a labor camp, Goldie made a Sophie’s Choice” and vol­un­teered to go while her sis­ter remained behind with their par­ents. Iron­i­cal­ly, Goldie, who was cho­sen to work in the camp office, sur­vived; the rest of the fam­i­ly did not. Mean­while, Sol and his broth­er and father were sent to Mau­thausen. A dar­ing young man, Sol maneu­vered him­self into a bet­ter posi­tion and became more able to with­stand the fiendish prac­tices of the Nazi guards. He lat­er lost his father in a march. After the war end­ed, the cou­ple met in Stuttgart and lat­er emi­grat­ed to Amer­i­ca — a new coun­try, a new land, and a new place to test their strength, inge­nu­ity, and mar­velous atti­tude. Of course, HIAS helped, but placed them in a loca­tion and jobs in which they could not envi­sion liv­ing in the future. Then, for­tu­itous­ly, these sophis­ti­cat­ed for­mer Euro­peans found them­selves in Vineland, New Jer­sey, where they became chick­en farm­ers and the nucle­us of a small Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty. This is a well-writ­ten account that makes use of wartime records that became avail­able in 2007, enabling son Joseph Finkel­stein to trav­el to Poland and, even­tu­al­ly, to learn the details of his grandfather’s, death in a hos­pi­tal after lib­er­a­tion. He was also able to show his father an enlarged pho­to of a memo­r­i­al in a ceme­tery with his grandfather’s name engraved on it. This is a live­ly, well writ­ten account with lots of pho­tos that fam­i­lies want to accom­pa­ny these mem­oirs, but it makes good read­ing for us, too. Pri­mar­i­ly an adult book, its live­li­ness suits teen read­ers as well.
Mar­cia W. Pos­ner, Ph.D., of the Holo­caust Memo­r­i­al and Tol­er­ance Cen­ter of Nas­sau Coun­ty, is the library and pro­gram direc­tor. An author and play­wright her­self, she loves review­ing for JBW and read­ing all the oth­er reviews and arti­cles in this mar­velous periodical.

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