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Walk Forward
Hidden secrets are discovered by a member of the second generation in her fifty year search for her sister, Eugenia, lost in the Holocaust. Jewish family members are caught in a hellish spider's web as the "last 500." As pawns in the chess game between Hitler's assistants, they survive the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz, Stutthof, the burning city of Dresden, Germany, and are released from concentration camp Theresienstadt. Born in Germany after the Holocaust, Rosie remembers the Displaced Persons' camp on her journey to the United States, as a three-year-old refugee on the troop carrier, the USS General William C. Langfitt. The theme of the book is the importance of family, no matter the time or the place. The true story includes scenes from her family's four years in captivity, and events in the lives of her Christian relatives during the First and Second World War. Rosie's mother, Louise, pictured on the front of the book, was not in the Holocaust, but enabled her husband, a survivor, and post-war family to "walk forward." The purpose of the narrative is to continue to uncover information about her lost sister, and all the children that remain missing, or perished in the Holocaust.
226 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 25, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 14, 2013
When I began to read this true tale of loss and loyalty, I felt the heartache of a man named Herman Chimowicz who survived the holocaust and returned home without his wife and nine-year-old daughter. I got caught in the story because a wife was assumed dead, and a daughter was not.
During the years after the war while he half heartedly began the process of repairing his life, Herman questioned returned prisoners of the concentration camp in an effort to hear news of his daughter and got none. Herman still refused to have his daughter declared dead.
In the author's desperate attempt to find her biological sister, Walk Forward reads like a long letter to her. She spoke to her of her family, their love for her, their travels, and lineage, while never letting go of the hope that Eugenia was alive. You learn of the carnage and the suffering of World War 2 survivors from this author's personal vantage point built with bits and pieces told to her by her father, and other family members.
The story takes you on the impossible odyssey yet gives a detailed account of the events of one of the most horrific wars in history, from the cattle trains loaded with dying human beings to the death chambers where the terrified, bewildered victims met their dark destinies.
Rosa Raskin leaves no clue unexamined regarding her oldest sisters whereabouts in her intense research where she reports everything, including exact dates of events of the Holocaust in motion - right down to the tattooed numbers on the arms of some of the survivors.
Raskin illuminates the reports of a hell by design, choreographed by a mad man, in striking detail. She seems to be talking with Eugenia over tea about her father's beginnings while paying testimony to her father's love for his first born, and she does it well. She speaks to the reign of Hitler and how this family of devoted Jews intended to migrate to Israel and while the notion may have saved them, they in turn could not conceive of the horrors that followed their delayed plans until it was too late.
This true story has a way of keeping your attention on one of the millions of families separated from their dreams by Hitler's insanity... You get to know these people and care for them, most especially Herman, the man who survived the worst imaginable while never letting go of his belief that his nine year old daughter Eugenia did too.
Herman did survive but the question remains in the center of his daughter Rosa's book; Did he ever really heal? His daughter Rosie endured her father's legacy and his nightmare when she gave it a voice in her beautiful love letter to her missing sister.
During the years after the war while he half heartedly began the process of repairing his life, Herman questioned returned prisoners of the concentration camp in an effort to hear news of his daughter and got none. Herman still refused to have his daughter declared dead.
In the author's desperate attempt to find her biological sister, Walk Forward reads like a long letter to her. She spoke to her of her family, their love for her, their travels, and lineage, while never letting go of the hope that Eugenia was alive. You learn of the carnage and the suffering of World War 2 survivors from this author's personal vantage point built with bits and pieces told to her by her father, and other family members.
The story takes you on the impossible odyssey yet gives a detailed account of the events of one of the most horrific wars in history, from the cattle trains loaded with dying human beings to the death chambers where the terrified, bewildered victims met their dark destinies.
Rosa Raskin leaves no clue unexamined regarding her oldest sisters whereabouts in her intense research where she reports everything, including exact dates of events of the Holocaust in motion - right down to the tattooed numbers on the arms of some of the survivors.
Raskin illuminates the reports of a hell by design, choreographed by a mad man, in striking detail. She seems to be talking with Eugenia over tea about her father's beginnings while paying testimony to her father's love for his first born, and she does it well. She speaks to the reign of Hitler and how this family of devoted Jews intended to migrate to Israel and while the notion may have saved them, they in turn could not conceive of the horrors that followed their delayed plans until it was too late.
This true story has a way of keeping your attention on one of the millions of families separated from their dreams by Hitler's insanity... You get to know these people and care for them, most especially Herman, the man who survived the worst imaginable while never letting go of his belief that his nine year old daughter Eugenia did too.
Herman did survive but the question remains in the center of his daughter Rosa's book; Did he ever really heal? His daughter Rosie endured her father's legacy and his nightmare when she gave it a voice in her beautiful love letter to her missing sister.
September 29, 2012
"Walk Forward" provides a firsthand account of a Holocaust family's adjustment to life in America and the drama of an endless search for a missing sister.
March 16, 2013
Each of these eye-witness Holocaust memoirs I read is like pealing another layer of onion. More insights and information from those who lived it. This memoir gave more history of life in the Jewish ghettos and the aftermath of Holocaust survivors.
I feel guilty giving this only two stars, as Raskin gives excellent detail of her family's experience. But for one like me, who has a hard time remembering names, I was usually completely lost as to who was who and the jumping back and forth of extended family members made it difficult for me to connect with anyone. I finally accepted my confusion and just decided to plow through to see what I could learn.
I feel guilty giving this only two stars, as Raskin gives excellent detail of her family's experience. But for one like me, who has a hard time remembering names, I was usually completely lost as to who was who and the jumping back and forth of extended family members made it difficult for me to connect with anyone. I finally accepted my confusion and just decided to plow through to see what I could learn.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews