Recollections and Reflections How I Turned Despair into an Appreciation of Life

by Brauns, Jack; Gilbert, Martin

• ISBN13: 9780853037491
• ISBN10: 0853037493
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-03-01
• Publisher: Vallentine Mitchell

Summary

This memoir contains many fascinating vignettes about pre-war childhood in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas, a child's-eye-view of the lost world of East European Jewry. It tells the tormented story of the Kovno ghetto as seen by a youngster whose father was a leading figure in the medical life of the ghetto. The author then recounts the long, harsh journey of entering the gates of Dante's Inferno into the whirlpool of the Holocaust - to Stutthof and Dachau - and moves on to describe his liberation. The author also provides a full and fascinating focus on the post-war years: recovery, organizing education in Italy, and the struggles of starting a new life in the United States, including the high point of obtaining the release of the author's parents from the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. Jack Brauns has written a most personal and engaging tale. Not only is it a powerful factual narrative, but it is also an uplifting one that rises above the cruelties and savageries of the Holocaust, and is full of hope.

Author Biography

Jack Brauns has written a most personal and engaging tale; not only is it a powerful factual narrative, but it is also an uplifting one that rises above the cruelties and savageries of the Holocaust, and is full of hope. During his life many people have touched him and like the wind some caressed him gently and some left him bruised. However, they influenced his thinking, behavior and personality, and shaped his life.

Table of Contents

List of Maps	p. vi
List of Illustrations	p. vii
Acknowledgements	p. xiii
Foreword	p. xv
The Library of Holocaust Testimonies by Sir Martin Gilbert	p. xvii
Revisiting Lithuania And My Past
Family Roots	p. 3
The Ghetto	p. 19
From Stutthof To Dachau Concentration Camp
Deportation to Stutthof, 14 July 1944	p. 71
Dachau	p. 77
Liberation: 29 April 1945	p. 103
Traveling East and then South to Italy	p. 108
Admission to Medical School	p. 122
Life In The United States
Internship and Residency: Adjusting to Normal Life	p. 157
Medicine in the Ghetto	p. 251
A Matter of Trust	p. 262
The People Who Stimulated My Brain Cells	p. 267
Letter to Joshua, My Grandson	p. 280
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