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Children of the Holocaust #1
Night and Hope
Stories about young people in the unique concentration-camp ghetto organized by the Nazis in the Czech city of Terezin are based on the author's own childhood experiences and observations
Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
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About the author
Arnošt Lustig
71 books76 followersArnošt Lustig (born 21 December 1926 in Prague) is a renowned Czech Jewish author of novels, short stories, plays, and screenplays whose works have often involved the Holocaust.
As a Jewish boy in Czechoslovakia during World War II, he was sent in 1942 to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, from where he was later transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, followed by time in the Buchenwald concentration camp. In 1945, he escaped from a train carrying him to the Dachau concentration camp when the engine was mistakenly destroyed by an American fighter-bomber. He returned to Prague in time to take part in the May 1945 anti-Nazi uprising.
After the war, he studied journalism at Charles University in Prague and then worked for a number of years at Radio Prague. He worked as a journalist in Israel at the time of its War of Independence where he met his future wife, who at the time was a volunteer with the Haganah. He was one of the major critics of the Communist regime in June 1967 at the 4th Writers Conference, and gave up his membership in the Communist Party after the 1967 Middle East war, to protest his government's breaking of relations with Israel. However, following the Soviet-led invasion that ended the Prague Spring in 1968, he left the country, first to Israel, then Yugoslavia and later in 1970 to the United States. After the fall of eastern European communism in 1989, he divided his time between Prague and Washington DC, where he continued to teach at the American University. After his retirement from the American University in 2003, he became a full-time resident of Prague. He was given an apartment in the Prague Castle by then President Václav Havel and honored for his contributions to Czech culture on his 80th birthday in 2006. In 2008, Lustig became the eighth recipient of the Franz Kafka Prize. [1]
Lustig is married to the former Vera Weislitzová (1927), daughter of a furniture maker from Ostrava who was also imprisoned in the Terezín concentration camp. Unlike her parents, she was not deported to Auschwitz. She wrote of her family's fate during the Holocaust in the collection of poems entitled "Daughter of Olga and Leo." They have two children, Josef (1950) and Eva (1956).
His most renowned books are A Prayer For Katerina Horowitzowa (published and nominated for a National book award in 1974), Dita Saxová (1979), Night and Hope (1985), and Lovely Green Eyes (2004). Dita Saxová and Night and Hope have been filmed.
As a Jewish boy in Czechoslovakia during World War II, he was sent in 1942 to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, from where he was later transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, followed by time in the Buchenwald concentration camp. In 1945, he escaped from a train carrying him to the Dachau concentration camp when the engine was mistakenly destroyed by an American fighter-bomber. He returned to Prague in time to take part in the May 1945 anti-Nazi uprising.
After the war, he studied journalism at Charles University in Prague and then worked for a number of years at Radio Prague. He worked as a journalist in Israel at the time of its War of Independence where he met his future wife, who at the time was a volunteer with the Haganah. He was one of the major critics of the Communist regime in June 1967 at the 4th Writers Conference, and gave up his membership in the Communist Party after the 1967 Middle East war, to protest his government's breaking of relations with Israel. However, following the Soviet-led invasion that ended the Prague Spring in 1968, he left the country, first to Israel, then Yugoslavia and later in 1970 to the United States. After the fall of eastern European communism in 1989, he divided his time between Prague and Washington DC, where he continued to teach at the American University. After his retirement from the American University in 2003, he became a full-time resident of Prague. He was given an apartment in the Prague Castle by then President Václav Havel and honored for his contributions to Czech culture on his 80th birthday in 2006. In 2008, Lustig became the eighth recipient of the Franz Kafka Prize. [1]
Lustig is married to the former Vera Weislitzová (1927), daughter of a furniture maker from Ostrava who was also imprisoned in the Terezín concentration camp. Unlike her parents, she was not deported to Auschwitz. She wrote of her family's fate during the Holocaust in the collection of poems entitled "Daughter of Olga and Leo." They have two children, Josef (1950) and Eva (1956).
His most renowned books are A Prayer For Katerina Horowitzowa (published and nominated for a National book award in 1974), Dita Saxová (1979), Night and Hope (1985), and Lovely Green Eyes (2004). Dita Saxová and Night and Hope have been filmed.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 20, 2021
This collection of short stories concern events in a concentration camp or "ghetto" called Theresienstadt. The first two stories titled "The Return" and "Rose Street" were the best of the book. I felt these two stories captured the horror that must have been felt by its residents. "The Return" was about a man who had fake ID that kept him out of the camp but because of the severe circumstances he was under to survive he let himself be taken into the camp only to find that it was worse inside and "Rose Street" was about an old woman who ran a poor little shop and the driver for a monstrous SS officer. The better of the other stories was one title "Stephen and Anne" about two young people who meet and hope to begin a relationship but circumstances intervene. The writing of Lustig was good, for the most part, but there were times I had difficulty following the story line.
November 25, 2011
Copy bought November 2011 from Kulturas Books
The seven stories in this book involve the concentration camp Theresienstadt during the Second World War which is where Lustig himself was interned giving his stories here a heartbreaking validity. The introduction actually summarizes the book in just a few sentences, which is better than anything I could say about this collection:
The first two stories (The Return and Rose Street) were the two strongest of the collection in my opinion; the following stories were fine but lost some of the oompf I found in the first two. These are powerful stories, primarily for the reason suggested in the introduction - Lustig focused on the individual instead of a collective, and that made a huge impression on me.
I much preferred Lustig's novel Lovely Green Eyes: A Novel, but see that I must have read that too long ago for me to have reviewed here. Maybe it's time for a re-read.
Recommendation: Do not read this book on Thanksgiving.
Note: I just discovered Lustig died earlier this year. RIP Arnošt Lustig.
The seven stories in this book involve the concentration camp Theresienstadt during the Second World War which is where Lustig himself was interned giving his stories here a heartbreaking validity. The introduction actually summarizes the book in just a few sentences, which is better than anything I could say about this collection:
Every detail in Lustig's work proclaims one fact: these men and women, boys and girls, were real; they were not numbers, they were not pigs as the Nazis shouted at them daily, they were not virtuous Jews either. They were human. To reclaim this reality is the project of Lustig's fiction.
(intro, iii)
The first two stories (The Return and Rose Street) were the two strongest of the collection in my opinion; the following stories were fine but lost some of the oompf I found in the first two. These are powerful stories, primarily for the reason suggested in the introduction - Lustig focused on the individual instead of a collective, and that made a huge impression on me.
I much preferred Lustig's novel Lovely Green Eyes: A Novel, but see that I must have read that too long ago for me to have reviewed here. Maybe it's time for a re-read.
Recommendation: Do not read this book on Thanksgiving.
Note: I just discovered Lustig died earlier this year. RIP Arnošt Lustig.
September 14, 2008
Whoa. This book is intense. I enjoyed everything about it. I believe I learned alot - specifically about life in a WWII Ghetto. I loved the characters, and character development happened so quickly, and the author developed them so deftly... that is perhaps the most impressive thing about the book, how few words and how little time is used in developing characters, and yet they are so rich and full. I also liked that climaxes aren't really climactic. You get the sense that regardless of what the outcome of a particular situation is, life in the Ghetto continues. In that way, it is very depressing. How could it not be, I guess, given the subject matter.
September 11, 2008
lustig is one of my favorite writers. this is a fairly early work, and his style and range becomes more distilled over time. i'd recommend starting with the collection 'street of lost brothers,' if you haven't read lustig before. he writes only about the holocaust. he's a survivor of several death camps. his writing crashes together and conflates naturalist realism and surreal imagination. several of his books have been made into films, including 'night and hope,' which won the royal palm award at the locarno festival in 1963. lustig is one of the two screenwriters on this film, as he is on some others.
June 15, 2009
Short stories set in the concentration camp / ghetto of Theresienstadt.
The stories are: Rose Street, The Children, Moral Education, Stephen and Anne, Blue Flames, Hope.
All give glimpses into the ordinary horrors of life in the Theriesenstadt ghetto during the Second World War. The characters show such endurance and can find hope even in the worst times. Heartbreaking and important stories, beautifully written.
The stories are: Rose Street, The Children, Moral Education, Stephen and Anne, Blue Flames, Hope.
All give glimpses into the ordinary horrors of life in the Theriesenstadt ghetto during the Second World War. The characters show such endurance and can find hope even in the worst times. Heartbreaking and important stories, beautifully written.
October 14, 2017
Kvůli přednášce jsem se pustila jen do tří povídek z tohoto souboru - Růžová ulice, Štěpán a Anna a Modravé plameny, ... ale Lustig je opravdu výborný autor, takže doufám, že se co nejdřív dostanu i ke zbytku.))
December 12, 2018
I'm largely disinterested in short stories even by authors that I love, yet I still took a chance on Lustig's Night and Hope even after having never read him before (bought this and Darkness together).
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed reading each story, and what I thought particularly interesting was the exploration into the lives of a character who made only a brief and minor appearance in a previous story.
The most touching was the second, Rose Street, which tells the story of a Jewish store owner who is continually harassed by Nazi officers. One of the officers, fraught with guilt, returns to her store, much to the woman's fright, and leaves her a bizarre gift as a token of his apologies before making his exit in silence.
“For forgetfulness, he thought, was the burying place of human folly in which all words and deeds were interred."
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed reading each story, and what I thought particularly interesting was the exploration into the lives of a character who made only a brief and minor appearance in a previous story.
The most touching was the second, Rose Street, which tells the story of a Jewish store owner who is continually harassed by Nazi officers. One of the officers, fraught with guilt, returns to her store, much to the woman's fright, and leaves her a bizarre gift as a token of his apologies before making his exit in silence.
“For forgetfulness, he thought, was the burying place of human folly in which all words and deeds were interred."
November 6, 2025
Lustig, a Holocaust survivor himself, presents a set of seven short stories set at the outset of the Holocaust. Taking different characters' bewildered perspectives of living with demonic, impersonal evil; knowing what fates lie ahead. Lustig's writing is more about the way experience is perceived than experiences themselves, and portraying civilization turning in upon itself. Challenging and perspective for him to also put himself in the German officers' boots & intuit the cowardly relationships within their hierarchy. The first two stories were, for me and for some other reviewers on here, by far the strongest.
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June 5, 2018(Read in college)
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews