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.
