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Beyond these Walls
Janina Bauman was a year older than Anne Frank when the Second World War began but, unlike The Diary of Anne Frank, this is a story of survival.
When Hitler's decree forced her family into the Warsaw Ghetto, Janina, an intelligent, lively girl, suddenly found herself in a cramped flat, hiding with other Jewish families. At first even curfews and the casual cruelty meted out by the German occupiers could not dim her passion for books, boys and romance. Then came the raids, and Janina, with her sister and mother, had to keep on the move, hiding in the ruins of the ghetto to avoid being one of thousands rounded up every day and deported to the camps. Their escape to the 'Aryan' side was followed by two years in hiding, taking shelter with those willing to help them and living in constant fear of betrayal.
Told through her teenage diaries, giving her story a rare immediacy, this is the extraordinary tale of a passionate young woman's courage and survival.
When Hitler's decree forced her family into the Warsaw Ghetto, Janina, an intelligent, lively girl, suddenly found herself in a cramped flat, hiding with other Jewish families. At first even curfews and the casual cruelty meted out by the German occupiers could not dim her passion for books, boys and romance. Then came the raids, and Janina, with her sister and mother, had to keep on the move, hiding in the ruins of the ghetto to avoid being one of thousands rounded up every day and deported to the camps. Their escape to the 'Aryan' side was followed by two years in hiding, taking shelter with those willing to help them and living in constant fear of betrayal.
Told through her teenage diaries, giving her story a rare immediacy, this is the extraordinary tale of a passionate young woman's courage and survival.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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About the author
Janina Bauman
6 books5 followersJanina Lewinson-Bauman was born in 1926. The comfortable life she shared with her family in Warsaw was destroyed with the outbreak of the Second World War. She has worked in Polish film as a translator, researcher and script editor.
Source: http://www.littlebrown.co.uk/Authors/...
Source: http://www.littlebrown.co.uk/Authors/...
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
March 23, 2018
Janina Bauman was thirteen when she, her mother and sister were interned in the Warsaw Ghetto and she gives us a deeply moving insight into daily life behind the walls. It's always the detail which creates an intimacy between the reader and the subject, that helps us understand the nature of the world evoked, and Janina has a fabulous eye in this regard. She also writes tremendously well.
The most depressing aspect of this memoir for me was the behaviour of some of the Poles. Outside the ghetto Jews in hiding were often hunted down by gangs of blackmailers or else charged exorbitant "rent" for the hovels they were forced to stay in. Basically you understand that only the very wealthy Jews had much chance of survival. Clearly racism was rife in Poland and made the Nazi's work a lot easier than in countries like Denmark, Holland, Italy and France.
The most depressing aspect of this memoir for me was the behaviour of some of the Poles. Outside the ghetto Jews in hiding were often hunted down by gangs of blackmailers or else charged exorbitant "rent" for the hovels they were forced to stay in. Basically you understand that only the very wealthy Jews had much chance of survival. Clearly racism was rife in Poland and made the Nazi's work a lot easier than in countries like Denmark, Holland, Italy and France.
November 23, 2018
This is an autobiographical account from a teenage girl of life in Warsaw from just before the war until its end. It covers the period of the Warsaw ghetto, which, as Jews Bauman and her family were confined to. We follow Bauman and her extended family through ups and downs via memory and some diary excerpts. Initially the family are quite well off, but once the Nazis invade Poland all that changes and Bauman, her mother and sister spend much of their time in hiding or on the run. Throughout the account the reader also sees Bauman grow up into a young woman.
From a middle class life the reader is taken onto the streets of the ghetto where dead bodies lie in the street. Bauman is honest about her account, honest about her own failings and those around her. She is trying to live an ordinary life in extraordinary circumstances and trying to find her own identity. The second half of the book is increasingly tense as after the destruction of the ghetto the family hide on the “Aryan” side of the city. They have to move regularly as hiding places are discovered or blackmailers find them: there is a thriving trade in blackmailing Jews in hiding. There are loses as friends and family are caught, some killed, some sent away to camps. With the destruction of Warsaw in the last few months of the war the family end up in a country village.
This is the first of Bauman’s autobiographical writings, she has been referred to as a sociologist of modern life. She writes with poignancy and warmth and even with some humour. Bauman finds the hiding frustrating, but it can’t entirely hide her teenage thoughts and fantasies:
“Perhaps we’ve been wasting the last bits of our lives not even trying to find out what love is”
Bauman was still obsessed with books, boys and romance and there is still that spark there despite the horrors. She is able to reflect at a distance:
“During the war I learned the truth we usually chose to leave unsaid: that the cruellest thing about cruelty is that it dehumanizes its victims before it destroys them. And that the hardest of struggles is to remain human in inhuman conditions”
This is a moving and very human account of Warsaw and its Jewish community and Bauman is an excellent narrator.
From a middle class life the reader is taken onto the streets of the ghetto where dead bodies lie in the street. Bauman is honest about her account, honest about her own failings and those around her. She is trying to live an ordinary life in extraordinary circumstances and trying to find her own identity. The second half of the book is increasingly tense as after the destruction of the ghetto the family hide on the “Aryan” side of the city. They have to move regularly as hiding places are discovered or blackmailers find them: there is a thriving trade in blackmailing Jews in hiding. There are loses as friends and family are caught, some killed, some sent away to camps. With the destruction of Warsaw in the last few months of the war the family end up in a country village.
This is the first of Bauman’s autobiographical writings, she has been referred to as a sociologist of modern life. She writes with poignancy and warmth and even with some humour. Bauman finds the hiding frustrating, but it can’t entirely hide her teenage thoughts and fantasies:
“Perhaps we’ve been wasting the last bits of our lives not even trying to find out what love is”
Bauman was still obsessed with books, boys and romance and there is still that spark there despite the horrors. She is able to reflect at a distance:
“During the war I learned the truth we usually chose to leave unsaid: that the cruellest thing about cruelty is that it dehumanizes its victims before it destroys them. And that the hardest of struggles is to remain human in inhuman conditions”
This is a moving and very human account of Warsaw and its Jewish community and Bauman is an excellent narrator.
February 8, 2015
true account of one of the luckiest survivors of the Holocaust - it sounds horribly shallow, but she managed to escape alive dozens of times with some of her family members and not having been sent to war camps. Still, so sad to read about Bella, and All the terrible ordeals.
wasn't crazy about the ending, which left me with quuestions - I'd love to have known about. her life afterwards, why Leeds, why leaving Poland, what happened to Sophie...
wasn't crazy about the ending, which left me with quuestions - I'd love to have known about. her life afterwards, why Leeds, why leaving Poland, what happened to Sophie...
December 27, 2010
In all the Holocaust/WWII autobiographies I have read, this was the first account of someone surviving the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto AND hiding on the 'Aryan' side. Reading this feels as if you are sitting with Janina in her living room listening to her story. Honest, brave and immediately absorbing this is a rare find and a must-read.
June 4, 2017
A first-hand account of the life of a Jewish girl in the Warsaw ghetto during WW2, of escaping and living in hiding.
April 24, 2010
It took Janina Bauma 40 yrs to write this book. I can see why, such heartache and painful memories. This book starts when she is 13 yrs. and are based off her diaries that she was later able to recover from their hiding places. She was the eldest daughter of a prosperous Jewish doctor. She is close to her grandparents and aunts and uncles, they too are invovled in her story. She was hidden in many places after surving the Polish Ghetto of Warsaw. The Germans did regualar Aktions, gathering of ten thousand Jews at a time taking to the death camps. Eventually Janina and a few of her family are smuggled into the Aryan side of the Ghetto. Here they moved from safe house to safe house with no personal belongings. Brave were those people who sacrificed and took this family and others like them into their home. I am glad we have books like these to remind of what happened during the WWII
April 16, 2012
A história trágica do Gueto e, entre os escombros da guerra, o primeiro amor de uma jovem.
“Durante a guerra aprendi uma verdade que geralmente preferimos não enunciar: que o mais brutal da crueldade é que ela desumaniza suas vítimas antes de destruí-las. E que a luta mais árdua de todas é permanecer humano em condições desumanas.”
The answer's got to be love.
“Durante a guerra aprendi uma verdade que geralmente preferimos não enunciar: que o mais brutal da crueldade é que ela desumaniza suas vítimas antes de destruí-las. E que a luta mais árdua de todas é permanecer humano em condições desumanas.”
The answer's got to be love.
December 26, 2025
... of: hoe te overleven als jonge Joodse vrouw in Polen tijdens WOII. Een behoorlijk uniek ooggetuigenverslag van de verschrikkingen binnen én (later) buiten het Joodse getto in Warschau. Soms (iets te) anekdotisch, maar misschien juist daardoor des te indringender. Geschiedenis beleefd, doorleefd, bekeken door een persoonlijke bril: een absolute aanrader.
December 29, 2018
Very educational and a crystal clear insight into Poland-specific Jewish experiences during wwII.
February 1, 2011
Good and honestly written. And I might add... she was a beauty when she was young.
Not as compelling as A LUCKY CHILD or A DAUGHTER'S LOVE. Her experiences of the war are tame compared to the authors of those two books. Perhaps because she was never in the death camps or captured by the Nazis as a Jew. In the Warsaw Ghetto, she is among the sligthly more privileged as her family has wealth.
Nevertheless, this is an important piece of work and I'm glad I read it.
Not as compelling as A LUCKY CHILD or A DAUGHTER'S LOVE. Her experiences of the war are tame compared to the authors of those two books. Perhaps because she was never in the death camps or captured by the Nazis as a Jew. In the Warsaw Ghetto, she is among the sligthly more privileged as her family has wealth.
Nevertheless, this is an important piece of work and I'm glad I read it.
October 14, 2017
"Durante la guerra ho appreso la verità che generalmente scegliamo di lasciare inespressa: vale a dire, che a cosa più crudele della crudeltà è che disumanizza le sue vittime prima di distruggerle. E che la battaglia più dura è rimanere umani in condizioni disumane." (p. 8)
July 8, 2012
Incrível relato dos tempos do holocausto na Polónia!
August 18, 2012
Hard going, but interesting.
December 26, 2023
Essa é uma obra digna de ser comparada com o diário de Anne Frank afinal a mesma consegue por meio de uma abordagem única retratar o Holocausto e a fuga dos judeus em todo sua complexidade de uma forma única e até mesmo superior ao Clássico anteriormente citado afinal o ponto mais forte do mesmo se encontra na descrição dos acontecimentos durante a segunda guerra mundial indo na visão dos judeus e dos alemães com toda complexidade e detalhadamento presentes de uma forma única e bem escrita acessível tanto aos mais leigos quanto os mais letrados sendo até mesmo o sofrimento,a dor e as exceções que se faziam presentes em ambos dos lados se mostram aqui afinal se mostra que apesar de tudo ainda se notavam pessoas boas no meio do mal e más no meio do “Bem" sendo assim essa é uma obra que todos deveriam consumir em algum momento de suas vidas para se quebrar diversos paradigmas sobre o Holocausto e realmente conhecer o mesmo de uma forma única pela visão dos judeus
Nota:10/10
Nota:10/10
October 9, 2021
An account of the author’s life in the Warsaw ghetto during the Nazi occupation of Poland in WWII. The author, Janina Bauman, recounts how she, her sister and her mother evaded being rounded up and sent to concentration camps or being executed on the spot by the Nazis. Living in constant danger she was forced to grow up and make decisions on her own for the good of not only herself, but her family members. While she survived, many of her friends and family did not. Like a lot of these experiences I’ve read about by others who endured a brutal life under Nazi occupation, it is amazing to me how the kindness, generosity and courage of others helped so many Jews survive the war. Of course, luck also plays a big role in this and it makes one wonder about divine intervention.
April 27, 2021
I highly recommend to take a trip in Warsaw around all this places and streets that she mentioned. Even though Warsaw was destroyed you can still see some parts of ghetto left.
June 30, 2023
Sempre que eu ler um livro sobre algum sobrevivente da segunda guerra mundial, vou sempre dar cinco estrelas!!
March 25, 2025
muito tocante. amei a escrita dela e riqueza de detalhes. recomendo!!!
May 12, 2014
Beyond These Walls is an amazing book! I loved every bit of it, although some parts were confronting and extremely sad. I would recommend it to everyone, particularly people who liked books such as Anne Frank and other Holocaust memoirs.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews