Bitter Freedom: Memoirs of a Holocaust Survivor

Bitter Freedom Jafa Wallach Paperback: 209 pages Publisher: Hermitage Publishers; First edition (April 25, 2006) Language: English ISBN-10: 1557791570 ISBN-13: 978-1557791573 Although I have read many first-hand account books written by holocaust survivors, I found Bitter Freedom to be the most compelling story of it's kind since The Diaries of Anne Frank. The book moved me like no other. Bitter Freedom is written in straight-forward prose by a mother survivor (Jafa Wallach) who shortly after the WWll ended, sat down and wrote the personal history of her family's lucky and often miraculous survival of the Holocaust. In letter form to her daughter- (Rena Wallach Bernstein) too young at the time to know the adult horrors of in which they survived, Mrs. Wallach pens an incredibly honest and poignant memoir. "The years have gone by and yet the memory of how it all began remains vivid, fearfully close, as though it all happened yesterday. We were at home, apartment #3 Jagielonska Street in the town of Sanok Poland, listening to radio bulletins of Hitler's attack. You, my daughter, were just one year old. You looked up at our anxious faces, your father's and mine, but you could not have understood how deeply frightened we were. You repeated after us, in your baby lisp, "war, war"-the ugliest word in human speech. It wasn't long after that German planes began to pay their deadly visits to our little town of Sanok." The book transports you back in history allowing you a glimpse of what everyday families were seeing, feeling and experiencing during this horrific time of war. The Jews of conquered Europe were taken by surprise never dreaming that civilized man could do to their fellow human beings what was now being done to them. Terror and mayhem swept Europe, and so swiftly had Hitler come east and so complete was his control of the lands he occupied- there was literally no where to run-no where to hide. Those hunted were now trapped in their own villages. Escaping the terror was made especially difficult because many people of the Nazi controlled villages were deeply and historically ingrained with hate for certain groups of their fellow countrymen. The Nazis used this hate to their advantage by turning neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend. Christian against Jew. Those of the hated lucky enough to survive, did so only with the help of others who chose to put their own lives, and those of their families at risk to save their friends and neighbors. Very few were willing to take that risk. Fortunately for the Wallach family One Christian man- a mechanic named Jozef "Jozio" Zwonarz did choose to put his own life and family at risk to save five fellow human beings. As he concealed four adults under the very noses of the Gestapo, he desperately schemed to save the life of the fifth family member, a four year old child. (Rena Wallach) With parents and daughter now separated, the nightmare for this family was complete. There was nothing

A powerful book describing horrors we cannot imagine. It was amazing that this family survived for even one week no less 22 months! Jafa writes in such a matter of fact way of such inhuman living conditions and her will and that of her family to survive. You will not be able put the book down until it is finished. This should be required reading for everyone so we never forget this dark time in our history and cherish our lives, our freedom and our families!

This is an important story for our times, a story of moral and physical courage, of faith and love. Against the black horror of the holocaust, the inspiring resilience of the Wallachs and the heroic bravery of those who hid them shine as a beacon of hope. Someone should make a movie of this story. A great read and even greater lesson.

I loved this book, and found it to be moving and inspiring. I was completely amazed at many things--from the depth of Jafa Wallach's memory for detail, to her indomitable spirit and faith, to her devotion to her daughter. The book is a tribute to ordinary people performing acts of kindness and heroism and becoming extraordinary people in the process. This book will touch your heart.

This book is an unforgettable memoir of a 95-year-old mother addressed to her dauhgter, both of whom survived the Holocaust miraculously. Written eloquently in vivid but clear language, it depicts the horrors of hiding from certain death in the hands of Nazi murderers. More than that, it illuminates the writer's indomitable spirit, her unbreakable determination to survive and eventually thrive in freedom with her family. For nearly two years, she and her husband and two brothers nearly starved to death in a cramped hole in the ground--infested with insects, mice, and a live-in rat--that they had dug. They were kept alive by a righteous gentile who endangered his own life by helping them dig their tiny pit on his property and sharing with them his own and his family's rare scraps of food. After 22 months of living underground full time,the survivers were blinded by the light above ground and couldn't stand upright for the first time since their confinement. Yet they all lived to reveal their ordeal and to prove how the spirit can overcome the worst ordeals of the flesh.