By ELI ROSENBLATT and MARISSA BROSTOFF
Printed: Thu. May 22, 2008
"by Michael Bart and Laurel Corona (St. Martin’s Press, 336 pages, $25.95) ...blend[s] a historical account of the Lithuanian Jews during the war years with an emotional account of a young group of Jewish resistance fighters led by Abba Kovner, who would live on as a Hebrew poet and unashamed Israeli noble. The strength of the narrative lies in Bart’s passionate description of Vilna, Yiddishland’s Baltic jewel and above all, a city where both Jewish traditions and Jewish modernisms flourished. We find a cast of characters who, while not religiously observant, exemplify a type of European Jewish lifestyle that both embraced otherness and proactively fought for social equality. A delicate, expressive story surfaces, letting Vilna sink slowly into our memories."
"...show[s] the increasing importance of second- and third-generation narratives — the retelling of a parent’s or grandparent’s experiences during the Shoah as filtered through the descendant’s research and remembrance."
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