Clara Kramer Ecco 2009, 352 pages (hardcover), $25.99
At first, there was that hesitation; another Holocaust memoir. What could be written that I hadn’t read before?
Yet, “Clara’s War,” the memoir of Clara Schwarz Kramer who hid in a shallow bunker with 18 other Jews, was something special. It is a heart-wrenching and in some ways a love story to the righteous gentiles who hid them.
Mrs. Kramer was a young teen living in Zolkiew, Poland, with her family when the Nazis occupied her town. “Clara’s War” is based on the diary she kept during more than 20 months in hiding.
They, along with four other families, lived in the bunker, while a family named the Becks lived above. Valentin Beck, or Beck as he was known, was an ethnic German; his wife, who had previously been the Schwarz’s housekeeper, was Polish.
Before the war, Beck had a reputation as an alcoholic, womanizer and loud-mouthed anti-Semite. Yet, during their months of hiding, he and his wife provided food, hope and news of the outside world to the Jewish families. They even invited the families up one Christmas to share in their celebration.
Over the months, the families survived a fire on the street that destroyed all the other homes, as well as Nazi trainmen and SS men who roomed directly above them. Through a combination of luck and kindness — several other Jewish families were discovered and killed the last week of Nazi occupation — the families survived. Of the 5,000 Jews in Zolkiew before the war, 60 survived.
After the war, the Becks were arrested by the Soviets who now controlled the region. It was only when Clara shared her diary that they were released.
Today, Ms. Kramer lives in New Jersey and her diary is housed in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
This amazing story of survival demonstrates the true meaning of righteousness and humanity. It’s a must-read.
Finalists for the 2007 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, administered the Jewish Book Council, have been announced. The $100,000 prize, the largest of its kind in the Jewish literary world, honors an emerging author in the field of Jewish literature who has written a book of exceptional literary merit that stimulates an interest in Jewish themes.
Finalists are: Ilana M. Blumberg for "Houses of Study: A Jewish Woman Among Books"; Eric L. Goldstein for "The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race and American Identity"; Lucette Lagnado for "The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World"; Michael Makovsky for "Churchill's Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft"; and Haim Watzman for "A Crack in the Earth: A Journey Up Israel's Rift Valley."
The inaugural Rohr Prize, awarded in 2006, went to Tamar Yellin for "The Genizah at the House of Shepher.”
2006 Jewish Book Winners
The National Jewish Book Association announced its 2006 award winners and finalists in a variety of categories. The winners are:
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