Holy Week: A Novel of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
4/5
()
About this ebook
At the height of the Nazi extermination campaign in the Warsaw Ghetto, a young Jewish woman, Irena, seeks the protection of her former lover, a young architect, Jan Malecki. By taking her in, he puts his own life and the safety of his family at risk. Over a four-day period, Tuesday through Friday of Holy Week 1943, as Irena becomes increasingly traumatized by her situation, Malecki questions his decision to shelter Irena in the apartment where Malecki, his pregnant wife, and his younger brother reside. Added to his dilemma is the broader context of Poles’ attitudes toward the “Jewish question” and the plight of the Jews locked in the ghetto during the final moments of its existence.
Few fictional works dealing with the war have been written so close in time to the events that inspired them. No other Polish novel treats the range of Polish attitudes toward the Jews with such unflinching honesty.
Jerzy Andrzejewski’s Holy Week (Wielki Tydzien, 1945), one of the significant literary works to be published immediately following the Second World War, now appears in English for the first time.
This translation of Andrzejewski’s Holy Week began as a group project in an advanced Polish language course at the University of Pittsburgh. Class members Daniel M. Pennell, Anna M. Poukish, and Matthew J. Russin contributed to the translation; the instructor, Oscar E. Swan, was responsible for the overall accuracy and stylistic unity of the translation as well as for the biographical and critical notes and essays.
Rebecca L. Oxford
Rebecca L. Oxford, University of Maryland, USA Professor Emerita and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, now guides dissertation research methodology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA.
Related to Holy Week
Related ebooks
When God Looked the Other Way: An Odyssey of War, Exile, and Redemption Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Escape From Hell: The True Story of the Auschwitz Protocol Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWatercolours: A Story from Auschwitz Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMommy, What’s That Number on Your Arm?: A-6374 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBecause others forget (Translated): Memoirs of a survivor of Auschwitz Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiving Memory Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFragments of My Life: A Memoir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHiding in Death's Shadow: How I Survived the Holocaust; Second Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Next Chapter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTrauma, Memory, and the Art of Survival: A Holocaust Memoir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAllies in Auschwitz: The Untold Story of British POWs Held Captive in the Nazis' Most Infamous Death Camp Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghetto of Hell Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWarsaw Freedom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOf Men, Monsters and Mazel: Surviving the “Final Solution” in Belgium Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTikva Means Hope Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwo Sisters: A Journey of Survival Through Auschwitz Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Little Girl from Poland: Memoir of an Immigrant Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Search Of A Lost People; The Old And The New Poland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFour Scraps of Bread Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Time's Witnesses: Women's Voices from the Holocaust Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTranscending Darkness: A Girl’s Journey Out of the Holocaust Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lilly's Album: Based on a true story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Saving the Jews: Men and Women who Defied the Final Solution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsViolette & Ginger Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hanna, I Forgot to Tell You: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings485 Days at Majdanek Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWaiting for Mama Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHave You Ever Been to Skarzysko?: A Survivor's Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unshed Tears Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
General Fiction For You
The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City of Dreaming Books Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unhoneymooners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Candy House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything's Fine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jackal, Jackal: Tales of the Dark and Fantastic Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nettle & Bone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cabin at the End of the World: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Good and Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beartown: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dry: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Holy Week
5 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a beautifully structured story, put together in the manner of Steinbeck, each part sliding smoothly into the next. It's very short, but packs a lot of action into its 120-odd pages. I also believe it's one of the more realistic novels I've read about the Holocaust. The author doesn't try to make a hero out of anyone, not even the Jewish woman whose plight drives the plot. None of the characters here -- Jews, Poles, Germans -- come off well. They are all selfish even when they try not to be. Irena is bitter and abrasive, and Jan is weak. But I think that's how people would really be in wartime, in an overcrowded city occupied by a foreign power, where you have a hard time of it even getting enough to eat. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Holocaust. In fact, I would probably put it on my top ten list of Holocaust novels. It's short as I said, and written simply, so a novice would not be intimidated by it. I also think it could be very easily adapted for the stage, and have been tempted to write a play of the story.
Book preview
Holy Week - Rebecca L. Oxford
Holy Week
Chapter 1
JAN MALECKI HAD NOT seen Irena Lilien for quite some time. As late as the summer of 1941, they still had seen a good deal of each other. By that time, the Liliens had been driven out of their home in Smug; but the German occupation authorities were not yet taking harsher measures against the Jews, so the Liliens, having paid off the necessary people, had avoided confinement in the Warsaw Ghetto. They had even managed to rescue some of their things, and with this remainder of their belongings, still quite sizable and valuable, the entire family moved closer to