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Bashert: A Granddaughter s Holocaust Quest (Willie Morris Books in Memoir and Biography) | 
 enlarge | Author: Andrea Simon
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Category: Book
Buy New: $35.00
New (5) Used (9) from $8.99
Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 1293549
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 1578064813
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.531809478
EAN: 9781578064816
ASIN: 1578064813
Publication Date: August 28, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
Haunted by her grandmother's Old World stories and bigger-than-life persona, Andrea Simon undertook a spiritual search for her lost family. Her sojourn, a quest for truth, gave her tragic answers. On a group tour of ancestral Jewish homeland sites that had been crushed in the Holocaust, she makes a riveting detour to her grandmother's village of Volchin, in what is now Belarus, where the last known family members had lived. There, she followed the trail of the death march taken by the village Jews to the place of their slaughter by Nazis and Nazi collaborators in the fall of 1942. During the same period, in Brona Gora, a forest between Brest and Minsk, some 50,000 Jews were shot. Simon was in one of the first American groups to visit this little-publicized site. Bashert, the Yiddish word for fate, guided her through the arduous quest. With newly translated archival records, she peeled back layers of clues to confront the mystery. This story of her momentous odyssey reveals the terrible fate of her kin. Mass shootings of Jews, particularly in the Soviet Union, have not been addressed with the same focus given to concentration-camp atrocities. Yet Simon's research reveals that Nazis killed nearly fifty percent of their Jewish victims by means other than gassing. In the historiography of the era, comparatively scant reference is made to the executions at Brona Gora. Thus Simon fills a significant gap in Holocaust history by providing the most extensive report yet given on the executions at Brona Gora and Volchin. As she interweaves tragic narrative with evocative family anecdotes, Simon writes a story of life in czarist Russia and, within this frame, of her family's flight from pogroms and persecution. From a unique vantage Simon's memoir discloses her dogged genealogical search, the newly perceived Jewish history she uncovered, and the ramifications of the Holocaust in the postwar generation. Andrea Simon is a freelance writer and photographer in New York City. She has been published in Mondo Greco, Sanibel Captiva Review, The Acorn, Fine Print, Arizona Jewish Post, and two anthologies. Visit the author's website, http://www.andreasimon.net/
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
A Labor of Love September 23, 2002
Russ Wellen (Sleepy Hollow, New York, United States)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Bashert chronicles the transformation of a woman spellbound by her larger-than-life grandmother's stories to an investigative journalist. Ms. Simon's relentless determination to uncover the fate of her family members and their neighbors is mirrored by her powerful, propulsive prose. If all ancestors were honored by descendants like Ms. Simon, history would no longer keep repeating itself.
an outstanding experience November 21, 2002
Kristi (USA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
The importance of family makes the biggest impression on me after reading this powerfully written literary book. The horrors that Simon's family experienced in the Holocaust bring that atrocity home in a profound way. Her personal journey becomes our journey with her as she discovers atrocities such as the killing of 50,000 Jews in mass graves, simply because they were Jewish. Making the reading even more insistent is her grandmother's voice which we hear throuought the book, urging her on and being with her. Being able to read a Holocaust account of one family, with photos of relatives past and present, puts the reader inside the family, as if this were your own family album, and an account and discovery of your own relatives. Evil such as the Holocaust gives us all pause and reaffirms the need to pray for God and goodness to prevail in all times, even now. While some people have a family tree that they borrow from family members, Simon's family has something much greater. They are so very lucky to have a relative who puts together a detailed family experience, researches its important past,and delivers it to present and future generations. Simon's grandmother and mother must certainly be very proud of her. Proud, too, must be her living relatives who can now hold in their hands such an intelligent, eloquent and profoundly moving account of their family. As outsiders,we are fortunate to have the opportunity to experience that family, and to acknowledge again the horrors of the Holocaust, through Beshert.
Never To Be Forgotten November 24, 2002
Audrey Schneider (Orange, Ct. USA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Andrea Simon has written a memoir filled with haunting memories. I found her descriptions so realistic, her feelings so intense that I was transported to the time and place of her ancestors. It became clear as I turned the pages that what began as the author's personal journey ended as a reminder to all readers, of events never to be forgotten.
An Important Book to Read December 6, 2002
ES (New York, NY)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Bashert by Andrea Simon is not only a labor of love and a remarkable gift to those who came before and will follow, it is an important addition to Holocaust literature, describing events that may not have come to light before. The events are described in a very readable and personal form. What makes this book especially moving is the way the author weaves her personal story into her search for historical fact. It is the author's personal involvement, warmth and humanity that draw the reader in and create a sense of personal involvement for the reader. We are not just reading history, but being taken along on the author's quest for knowledge and truth. We share her hunger to know what happened to her lost family. For those with personal experience or knowledge of the Holocaust, this will add; for others it is a good place to start. It is a remarkable personal odyssey which will leave the reader affected and transformed.
bashert: a granddaughters holocause quest November 16, 2002
penelope laitin (new york city)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a beautifully written memoir. The weaving of the authors personal stories with her discoveries about how the holocaust affected her ancestors is moving and brilliant.
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