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Book Reviewed by:A heart-wrenching story of love and defiance set in the Warsaw Ghetto, based on the actual archives kept by those determined to have their stories survive World War II
A Read with Jenna Book Club Pick and named a Best Book of 2023 by Kirkus Reviews (Best Fiction Books of the Year & Best Historical Fiction of 2023)
On a November day in 1940, Adam Paskow becomes a prisoner in the Warsaw Ghetto, where the Jews of the city are cut off from their former lives and held captive by Nazi guards, and await an uncertain fate. Weeks later, he is approached by a mysterious figure with a surprising request: Will he join a secret group of archivists working to preserve the truth of what is happening inside these walls? Adam agrees and begins taking testimonies from his students, friends, and neighbors. He learns about their childhoods and their daydreams, their passions and their fears, their desperate strategies for safety and survival. The stories form a portrait of endurance in a world where no choices are good ones.
One of the people Adam interviews is his flatmate Sala Wiskoff, who is stoic, determined, and funny—and married with two children. Over the months of their confinement, in the presence of her family, Adam and Sala fall in love. As they desperately carve out intimacy, their relationship feels both impossible and vital, their connection keeping them alive. But when Adam discovers a possible escape from the Ghetto, he is faced with an unbearable choice: Whom can he save, and at what cost?
Inspired by the testimony-gathering project with the code name Oneg Shabbat, New York Times bestselling author Lauren Grodstein draws readers into the lives of people living on the edge. Told with immediacy and heart, We Must Not Think of Ourselves is a piercing story of love, determination, and sacrifice for the many fans of literary World War II fiction such as Kristin Harmel's The Book of Lost Names and Lauren Fox's Send for Me.
Much of what the narration conveys is rather mundane—a beleaguered population making the best of an increasingly intolerable situation—particularly in the novel's first half. Through interviews we learn how the housewives and children around him cope with such deprivation. We read about people's former lives, their desires and dreams, their loves, and their hopes for a better future. These characters leap off the page; each is unique and beautifully drawn, with their own perspective on their ordeal. These sections read like actual transcripts, with realistic digressions and segues. Sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, sometimes harrowing, the stories form a beautiful mosaic describing the lives of those trapped in the Ghetto...continued
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(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
Lauren Grodstein's novel We Must Not Think of Ourselves was inspired by the Oneg Shabbat Project, a World War II archive compiled and hidden by the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto. Established and run by Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum, the archive contained a wide variety of documents recording daily life in the Ghetto.
Ringelblum was born in Buczacz, Poland (now part of Ukraine) in 1900, and after graduating from Warsaw University he taught high school history. He was known as an expert on the history of Poland's Jewish community from the late Middle Ages onward and was a frequent contributor of scholarly articles on the subject.
He was also politically and socially active. As a young man he joined Po'alei Zion Left, a Marxist-Zionist ...
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At times, our own light goes out, and is rekindled by a spark from another person.
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Lauren Fox, New York Times bestselling author of Send for Me
In We Must Not Think of Ourselves, Lauren Grodstein writes with such a blazing commitment to the truth of the Warsaw Ghetto that sometimes I had to stop reading and catch my breath. But in the midst of the brutality, she clears a path for the parallel stories of love and decency. Make no mistake: this is a heartbreaking portrait of a dark moment. But this novel shimmers with light.
