Soundless Roar: Stories, Poems, and Drawings

by Ava Kadishson Schieber, Phyllis Lassner (Preface)

Soundless Roar introduces a distinctive new voice to Holocaust literature. Ava Kadishson Schieber, author, poet, and artist, spent her teenage years hiding from the Nazis on a Serbian farm. Her cultured speech and city-bred body language could have betrayed her, so she was forced into near isolation. Schieber began drawing while in hiding, and she continues to express herself today with the same urgency. The drawings and writings in Soundless Roar are the culmination of many years of artistry. In her work, she shares her memories of loved ones killed in the Holocaust: they are "friendly ghosts" that will always be a part of her.

Schieber's drawings, paintings, poetry, and prose are all intimate reflections of one another. Her experience forged the unusual sense of time that shapes Schieber's stories. In her preface, Phyllis Lassner writes: "The timetable of Ava's stories often consists of circles within circles, of patterns of an intertwined past, the past present of hiding, and the present looking back at those distinctly separate but inseparable pasts."

145 pages, Hardcover

First published May 15, 2002

Reviews

[Danny · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Soundless Roar' sits alongside the very best of Holocaust literature. Ava Kadishson Schieber presents her intriguing and beautiful artwork, depicting her "friendly ghosts" within and connected to self portraits and fading memories. The drawings hold together her stories and poems, through which she recalls her teenage years hiding on a farm near Belgrade in an attempt to escape Nazi arrest. But this is no ordinary survivor testimony. Accessible yet strange, Ava Kadishson Schieber weaves present day memories within and behind her experiences of war and profound loss. She climbs into a New York taxi and the face of her driver takes her back to a hiding place in Nazi-occupied Belgrade. A conversation with an old family friend leads us through the gates of Auschwitz where we learn, along with the writer, that her father had been forced to play his violin outside the gas chambers at Birkenau. Suitable for high school level, 'Soundless Roar' will alter your perceptions of Holocaust history and memory. And we become witness to an artist's attempt to overcome and move beyond her trauma. Highly recommended.

[Dara · Rating 3 out of 5]

The line drawings were beautiful -- the most touching part of the book for me.