Regrowth: Seven Tales of Jewish Life Before, During, and After Nazi Occupation

by Der Nister, Erik Butler (Translation)

The seven stories that compose Regrowth ( Vidervuks ) might shock readers familiar with accounts of the Holocaust marked by mournful and sentimental overtones. Although the outcome is often terrible, Der Nister’s characters refuse to accept the role of victim. Likewise, the monstrosity of the perpetrators is not at issue: the Nazis may be abominable, but they do not warrant attention for longer than a savage animal would. Der Nister is drawn to parties capable of moral decision—and their dilemmas often feature an opponent that is inside one’s own people, inside oneself. “Flora,” for example, follows a father and daughter through the Nazi invasion and later Soviet occupation of a Polish-Jewish city. 

Der Nister paints a sympathetic portrait of the father, a member of the Jewish Council, even though he collaborates with the Nazis in a misguided attempt to help his people. To repair the father’s mistake, his daughter joins the resistance, seduces a traitor, and delivers him to his death. Accounts are settled within the Jewish community. The Nazi enemy is largely passed over in the silence his infamy deserves. Der Nister’s characters are crafty, and they do not hesitate to use force when necessary. After the defeat of the Nazis and Soviet takeover, Der Nister suggests, the maneuvering will continue. The morally complex characters and richly layered stories of Regrowth ultimately reclaim a more nuanced view of crimes still not fully reckoned.

Genres: Jewish, Fiction

308 pages, Paperback

First published May 5, 2011

About the author

Der Nister (Yiddish: דער נסתּר; Berdychiv, Ukraine in 1884 – 1950 the Soviet Gulag) was the penname of Pinchus Kahanovich (פנחס כהנאָוויטש), a Yiddish author, philosopher, translator, and critic.

Kahanovich was born in Berdychiv to a Hasidic family of merchants. He received a traditional religious education, but was drawn through his reading to secular and Enlightenment ideas, as well as to Zionism. Forced to avoid the military draft to the Imperial Russian Army, he hid in Zhytomyr, where he earned a modest living as a tutor at an orphanage for Jewish boys. Even in his earliest works, he was drawn to the arcane teachings of the Kabbalah and to the intense use of symbols in his writings. This is reflected in the pseudonym he adopted, ‘’Der Nister" (in English, “The Hidden One”). His best-known work, Di Mishpokhe Mashber, is a more naturalistic family saga. It has been translated into English by Leonard Wolf as The Family Mashber.
In 1920 he lived with Marc Chagall in Malakhovka.[1] In 1921, in the wake of the Russian Revolution, Der Nister left Russia and settled in Germany. While living in Berlin, he published his first two collections of stories. In 1927, he returned to the Soviet Union, where his symbol-laden work, rich in Jewish themes, was declared reactionary by the Soviet regime and its literary critics. As a result, he stopped publishing his original works and earned a living as a journalist.
During World War II, the Soviet government briefly adopted less censorious policies over writings considered to be promoting Jewish nationalism. Der Nister began writing again, describing the persecution and destruction of the Jewish communities in Europe under the Nazi regime, and hinting at Soviet persecution as well. He was arrested in 1949 and sent to a prison camp, where he became ill and died the following year.
Der Nister appears as one of the main characters in the novel The World to Come by Dara Horn. The book describes Kahanovich's uneasy friendship with artist Marc Chagall, inside whose frames he hid some of his writings. Adaptations, descriptions, and excerpts from his stories, and those of other Yiddish writers, are included. (Horn makes one fictional change: Der Nister dies almost as soon as arrested, whereas in reality he died the following year, or maybe as late as 1952 according to some sources).

Reviews

[Rebecca Grapevine · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the greatest short story collections I have ever read. Translated from Yiddish to English by Erik Butler at Emory. Original Yiddish title Videruks.

[Marlee Pinsker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Regrowth is a collection of seven stories of Jewish life before, during and after the Nazi Occupation. It is beautifully written, even in translation. The author is a master, writing, for example, "It is winter. It's a snowy, cold, night out there. In the distant forests, wolves howl in thick running packs, and others flash phosphorescent lightening glances from the forest's edge, casting fear into passing travelers and horses."

Fearsome as these animals are, Der Nister writes about even more fearsome animals, noting they were human once. The focus, however, is on the Jewish people who struggle under impossible strictures. Some are able to fight as partisans, but others can find no way to survive. Somehow, Der Nister is able to find instances of regrowth, even though the book is permeated with loss and horrific suffering. He sensitively writes of the experiences of children who have to take leave of their families, people who crawl into a bunker in the earth knowing they may never see the sun again, a woman who draws the other women to light the Shabbat candles one more time before they are shot. One father can't come out to hug his daughter one last time because he says he does not have the heart for it, and then, from behind his locked door, there is sobbing. She leaves without his blessing, but she knows he cares the most of anyone.

This book was haunting. I read it slowly because it is intense. I recommend it for people who like to keep their eyes open. What it describes is largely horrible, but then the writing is precise and eloquent, and the tales are mysteries to be unraveled. We find out that a woman who was a partisan can dance at a ball, when all is over, wearing a dress like the one she used to wear before life changed. Her expressive dancing can be described, but then, we are not sure who is describing it. We find out that someone can come to rescue the writing of some of the lost souls, and so they live on, in us.

The translater, Erik Butler wrote an excellent Afterward that helps the reader understand some of the stories on a deeper level. When one is done, one can read the stories again, as they are rich and many layered. Even when the writer burns his notebooks, a friend can gather up the scraps and pieces of the burning manuscripts, and fashion them into stories, these stories.