FEATURED JOBS
Comments (0)Author Anita Diament, whose previous novels “The Red Tent” and “Good Harbor” have earned her a devoted following of readers, fascinates again with her novel set in the tumultuous time after the second world war.
Following World War II, many Jews, fleeing Europe for the promise of a new life in what was then British-controlled Palestine, came to that land without the proper papers. These “illegal” immigrants were then sent by the British to Atlit, an internment camp north of Haifa, until they could be relocated to kibbutzim. In October of 1945, an underground team staged a daring rescue of the prisoners of Atlit and rescued nearly 200 people from the camp.
Anita Diamant’s latest novel, “Day After Night,” is the story of four young women interned in Atlit. Each of these women is escaping the horrors of Nazi-occupied Europe, each having done what she could in order to survive. Each keeps her own secrets, but still they are able to form a bond with each other.
There is Shayndel, who spent the war in the Polish Resistance; Leonie, a French Jew who had survived in a brothel; Tedi, a Dutch Jew who had been in hiding; and Zorah, a concentration camp survivor. Other prisoners of the camp harbor secrets as well, and there are also the brave members of the Palmach, those Israelis who worked to free the prisoners and offer them a new life in Israel.
I found this novel to be a page-turner. The histories of the four main characters were fascinating, each woman displaying a strength that had carried her through the Holocaust and allowed her to create a future in Zion.
Diamant’s descriptions of life in the internment camp reflected the huge amount of research that she had performed, and introduces this reader to an exciting period in Israeli history. This book is historical fiction at its best.