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“Lynn’s accomplishment is the translation, which is literate, often elegant, and always accessible. This is simply a major contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust, and even more, to our attempts to educate so that the men, women and events of the war will never be forgotten.” – Neil Gillman; Professor Emeritus of Jewish Philosophy; Jewish Theological Seminary

“Lynn’s deft translation, full glossary and student-friendly format make this book useful for general readers, students and scholars alike. No library with an interest in Modern Jewish History should be without it.” – Dr. Michael A. Riff; Director, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies; Ramapo College of New Jersey

Why Yizkor Books?

Now that the Holocaust survivors are dying , how will we stay connected to the Holocaust? How and what will we teach about this event without its mainstay–the witnesses? Survivors will continue speaking to us in the pages of Yizkor books, making the Holocaust personal with their recollections of childhood, family, community and religion.

Old Survivors Dying

The Holocaust survivors are dying. When they are gone, how will we stay connected to the Holocaust? How and what will we teach about this event without its mainstay–the witnesses?

Without Yizkor books, historians and students might easily succumb to quaint stereotypes and fictitious versions of Eastern European Jewry. These memorial collections provide a narrative for a way of life that is irretrievably lost.

Rosemary Horowitz, professor at Appalachian State University and author of Memorial Books of Eastern European Jewry: Essays on the History and Meanings of Yizkor Volumes:

“Soon history will speak with the impersonal voice of scholars, at worst with the poisonous voice of anti-Semites and falsifiers.

Approximately 7,000-8,000 writers and 1,000 editors participated in the writing and editing of these memorial books.

Memoirs and testimonies printed in the memorial books hold a very important place as source material for research into the history of the communities and the characteristic ways of Jewish life in Eastern Europe. These memoirs and testimonies are the records of holocaust survivors themselves or of Jews who emigrated from their hometowns, records of Jewish participation in the armed struggle against the Nazis and their collaborators. The richest and most detailed material deals with Jews who fought with partisans, especially memorial books from any community in Eastern Poland and Byelorussia.”

Hannah Arendt, a German-born American political theorist who escaped the Holocaust and became an American citizen, adds:

“Whatever happened or was done within that world of the Shoah, is ensured not to perish with the life of the doer or endurer; but to live on in the memory of future generations.”