What do you think?
Rate this book
Voces del gueto de Varsovia
Voces del gueto de Varsovia reconstruye la vida de los judíos en la capital polaca durante la II Guerra Mundial, a través de los testimonios de veintinueve protagonistas de los acontecimientos, muchos de los cuales murieron antes de la liberación de la ciudad. El resultado es un gran relato coral, una crónica apasionada y terrible de la supervivencia que refleja la diversidad de opiniones y profesiones que existía en el gueto.
464 pages, Paperback
First published October 2, 2002
38 people are currently reading
245 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
August 29, 2022
A long, heavy read. Collection of eyewitness accounts of the Warsaw ghetto, told first person from the start of the war through its end in their own, unedited words. Some of the writers survived the war, some did not. Some were written before being sent to camps, or while in hiding in the ghetto or in hiding on the Aryan side. Some papers were found in the rubble of Warsaw, some were passed from person to person. A wide ranging collection of Holocaust experiences. Important to read these experiences but not easy, certainly. Grateful for archives like these that give us a window into this awful reality.
Read
August 2, 2011A harrowing but excellent collection of contemporary accounts of the struggle for survival in the face of a genocidal enemy. Many of the diaries (people from all walks of life caught in a single nightmare) presented are the only record left of those who were slaughtered in the death camps or who were murdered in Warsaw. The collection captures on a very human level the sense of despair and helplessness, it also records some of the best and worst in humanity. It brings to life the terror of living under a permenant shadow of death. These few voices speak for the millions who never had an opportunity to speak and were murdered en masse. This is an important record of a period now fading out of living memory and which is increasingly subject to revisionists with their own power games to pursue. This book is vital contribution to keeping the memory alive and essential reading for anyone wanting to begin to understand the post-WWII world and the world today.
November 7, 2008
This is a fine collection of accounts, most of which have never been previously published, that really gave me the sense of what it was like to live and fight and die in the Warsaw ghetto. The writers were a wide variety of people -- mostly Jews of course, but there were some gentiles, and even one young child -- and there were biographical sketches revealing details of each person's life and fate, if known. Recommended for scholarly Holocaust collections.
July 25, 2014
This book was recommended by author Gwen Edelman in her article, "The Jews and the Second World War: A Reading List", on the Jewishbookcouncil.org. This author recommends a list of books: "the most powerful & the most meaningful" on "the fate on the Jews during the Second World War." Here is the link: (http://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/_blo...).
August 14, 2018
Slightly deceptive.
NOT typical stories of the Warsaw ghetto. It centers on individuals and not a people or the resistance. Some of these accounts show great bravery while others just make one wonder just what the heck was going on.The women seem to be very brave and tough while several of the men wring their hands and wonder what to do.At one point a man sits on a sofa sobbing and pulling his hair out because he doesn't have a pair of pants.Extremely childish considering he could have been in a cattle car on his way to Treblinka. As for the children in the ghetto...Perhaps the parents should have made contact with Irena Sendler who was constantly taking children out of the Warsaw ghetto.Known by her code name "Jolanta" she was available at no charge. Still...The horrors of the ghetto are heartwrenching and difficult to read.I judge no one. No one should because unless you were there no can understand the choices people were forced to make.
NOT typical stories of the Warsaw ghetto. It centers on individuals and not a people or the resistance. Some of these accounts show great bravery while others just make one wonder just what the heck was going on.The women seem to be very brave and tough while several of the men wring their hands and wonder what to do.At one point a man sits on a sofa sobbing and pulling his hair out because he doesn't have a pair of pants.Extremely childish considering he could have been in a cattle car on his way to Treblinka. As for the children in the ghetto...Perhaps the parents should have made contact with Irena Sendler who was constantly taking children out of the Warsaw ghetto.Known by her code name "Jolanta" she was available at no charge. Still...The horrors of the ghetto are heartwrenching and difficult to read.I judge no one. No one should because unless you were there no can understand the choices people were forced to make.
August 11, 2022
Owad’s Micro-Review #15
Polish historian Grynberg gives us an up-close view of life inside the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. The 29 letters and diary entries from various ghetto inhabitants combine to present a disturbingly clear view of what it was like to be at the mercy of Hitler’s bureaucratically oiled extermination machine (less than 1% of the 500,000 ghetto Jews survived). Particularly chilling: the attempts by the ghetto’s leaders to stave off the inevitable death-trip to Treblinka. Theirs was a brave but doomed task, and their words should be read by anyone who is not already horrified by today’s European and American creep toward totalitarianism. Oct. 1, 2020
Polish historian Grynberg gives us an up-close view of life inside the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. The 29 letters and diary entries from various ghetto inhabitants combine to present a disturbingly clear view of what it was like to be at the mercy of Hitler’s bureaucratically oiled extermination machine (less than 1% of the 500,000 ghetto Jews survived). Particularly chilling: the attempts by the ghetto’s leaders to stave off the inevitable death-trip to Treblinka. Theirs was a brave but doomed task, and their words should be read by anyone who is not already horrified by today’s European and American creep toward totalitarianism. Oct. 1, 2020
June 21, 2019
This book took me quite a while to finish because the accounts were quite scattered and the pages were large and thin. It wasn't always gripping, but it was always the first-hand real experiences of Jewish people who lived in and around Warsaw during WWII and that's a heavy enough topic for anyone.
August 27, 2017
Incredibly harrowing and sobering read about life in Warsaw during WWII. As a bit of a WWII history nut, it still never ceases to amaze me just how much evil occurred during the war.
August 31, 2017
A haunting narrative of life in a Jewish ghetto, by some known authors and some anonymous whose voices tell of the horrors that humans can survive but also the voices of those who perished.
January 28, 2018
a harrowing and heartbreaking read in parts. The title has a lot of truth in it...words to outlive us and which should never be forgotten...
September 3, 2018
I don’t know how to rate this book. It’s based on personal accounts of events during the holocaust. How can you feel good after reading this? You can’t.
April 29, 2013
In Michal Grynberg's mindblowing work "Words To Outlive Us: Eyewitness Accounts of the Warsaw Ghetto", he presents the reader with a disturbing collection of testimonies written by Jews during the infamous days of Nazi-occupied Poland.
The stories collected here are all true and written by Jewish people, both survivor and victim, bearing witness to the tragedies inflicted upon their community by the vicious Nazi regime.
Ripped out of their homes, nearly all of their possessions, including furniture, clothes, and jewelry stolen from them--the Jews of Warsaw were forced to live in an unbearingly crowded and filthy section of the city, referred to by everyone as the "ghetto".
Completely unprepared for the horrors the Nazis had in store for them, many Jewish families kept hoping that the inevitable was untrue; some still felt that the Germans couldn't possibly slaughter innocent people. But account after heartbreaking account testifies that that was exactly what they did. Men, women, the elderly, and even young children and babies were massacred in the most brutal of ways. Mothers had their children shot in front of their very eyes and whole families were sent to their deaths from a train station called "Umschlangplatz" to the dreaded Treblinka and other concentration camps.
The stories collected in this volume were written by Jewish people who before the war, came from a wide variety of professions and family backgrounds, but because of the Nazis, were joined with each other in a common struggle amidst the starvation and terror that was the Warsaw ghetto. From a young woman hiding in a bunker during the raging years of the war, trying to allay her misery with the written word and satire in the form of a weekly "newsletter", to a haunted father distraught over the loss of his beloved wife and daughter to the death camps, these stories have been written by a people that witnessed the worst bestiality of modern times and determined throughout their struggle, to put down their experiences on paper for the world to one day see.
Unlike sweeping histories of World War II and the Holocaust, this book reveals very specifically the day to day life of an average ghetto resident. Completely stripped of their rights, the Jews of Warsaw were desperate for any work at all and proper documentation in order that their lives would be spared. Factories were set up to benefit the German war cause that employed the Jews of the ghetto, and the stories tell of the desperation of the average Jewish person to find at least, a fairly decent factory to work in, that as the Nazis routinely said, would spare them from the feared deportations.
Lie after lie would be told to the Jews by the Nazis, that they would be 'resettled' to a different region and would work peacefully until the end of the war. This would always result in being transported to the death camps. In just one example such as the "Hotel Polski" disaster, Jews were put up at a local hotel and given papers to safe countries to emigrate to, such as Latin America, France, and even America. Overjoyed at what they thought was a chance to escape, they rapidly discovered all too late that these promises were nothing but ploys to send them unknowingly to their deaths in the concentration camps.
The Jews of the ghetto quickly learned never to believe the false promises of their German oppressors, and the vast majority began to build underground bunkers and various hiding places. A good deal of them even managed to escape beyond their confines to what was called the "Aryan side" and live under assumed identities.
These compelling accounts tell, however, that not all of the Jews decided to escape. In April of 1943, Jewish fighting groups banded together for an uprising against the Nazis. Determined to die defending themselves, they put up a valiant fight that lasted several months and killed many Germans. This revolt ultimately failed however, and soon thereafter, the Nazis decided to liquidate the Warsaw ghetto.
Reduced to smoking piles of ashes, the city lay in ruins. There were Jews that survived however, in their cleverly built underground hiding places and who, on January 15th of 1945, lived to see the day of liberation by the Soviet army and Polish fighting forces.
I felt when reading this book, that it was especially heart-breaking to know the names and personal histories of the Jews who experienced this unbelievable slaughter. These were mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, husbands, and wives who saw first hand the virulent evil human beings can perpetrate against each other. Their lives are inspirational and tragic; both terrifying and victorious. For the common thread these people had, both survivor and victim alike, was a special spirit within them that even through the fiercest of oppression could never be snuffed out.
Their words will speak to us forever and remind us to never forget...never forget.
The stories collected here are all true and written by Jewish people, both survivor and victim, bearing witness to the tragedies inflicted upon their community by the vicious Nazi regime.
Ripped out of their homes, nearly all of their possessions, including furniture, clothes, and jewelry stolen from them--the Jews of Warsaw were forced to live in an unbearingly crowded and filthy section of the city, referred to by everyone as the "ghetto".
Completely unprepared for the horrors the Nazis had in store for them, many Jewish families kept hoping that the inevitable was untrue; some still felt that the Germans couldn't possibly slaughter innocent people. But account after heartbreaking account testifies that that was exactly what they did. Men, women, the elderly, and even young children and babies were massacred in the most brutal of ways. Mothers had their children shot in front of their very eyes and whole families were sent to their deaths from a train station called "Umschlangplatz" to the dreaded Treblinka and other concentration camps.
The stories collected in this volume were written by Jewish people who before the war, came from a wide variety of professions and family backgrounds, but because of the Nazis, were joined with each other in a common struggle amidst the starvation and terror that was the Warsaw ghetto. From a young woman hiding in a bunker during the raging years of the war, trying to allay her misery with the written word and satire in the form of a weekly "newsletter", to a haunted father distraught over the loss of his beloved wife and daughter to the death camps, these stories have been written by a people that witnessed the worst bestiality of modern times and determined throughout their struggle, to put down their experiences on paper for the world to one day see.
Unlike sweeping histories of World War II and the Holocaust, this book reveals very specifically the day to day life of an average ghetto resident. Completely stripped of their rights, the Jews of Warsaw were desperate for any work at all and proper documentation in order that their lives would be spared. Factories were set up to benefit the German war cause that employed the Jews of the ghetto, and the stories tell of the desperation of the average Jewish person to find at least, a fairly decent factory to work in, that as the Nazis routinely said, would spare them from the feared deportations.
Lie after lie would be told to the Jews by the Nazis, that they would be 'resettled' to a different region and would work peacefully until the end of the war. This would always result in being transported to the death camps. In just one example such as the "Hotel Polski" disaster, Jews were put up at a local hotel and given papers to safe countries to emigrate to, such as Latin America, France, and even America. Overjoyed at what they thought was a chance to escape, they rapidly discovered all too late that these promises were nothing but ploys to send them unknowingly to their deaths in the concentration camps.
The Jews of the ghetto quickly learned never to believe the false promises of their German oppressors, and the vast majority began to build underground bunkers and various hiding places. A good deal of them even managed to escape beyond their confines to what was called the "Aryan side" and live under assumed identities.
These compelling accounts tell, however, that not all of the Jews decided to escape. In April of 1943, Jewish fighting groups banded together for an uprising against the Nazis. Determined to die defending themselves, they put up a valiant fight that lasted several months and killed many Germans. This revolt ultimately failed however, and soon thereafter, the Nazis decided to liquidate the Warsaw ghetto.
Reduced to smoking piles of ashes, the city lay in ruins. There were Jews that survived however, in their cleverly built underground hiding places and who, on January 15th of 1945, lived to see the day of liberation by the Soviet army and Polish fighting forces.
I felt when reading this book, that it was especially heart-breaking to know the names and personal histories of the Jews who experienced this unbelievable slaughter. These were mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, husbands, and wives who saw first hand the virulent evil human beings can perpetrate against each other. Their lives are inspirational and tragic; both terrifying and victorious. For the common thread these people had, both survivor and victim alike, was a special spirit within them that even through the fiercest of oppression could never be snuffed out.
Their words will speak to us forever and remind us to never forget...never forget.
Read
September 30, 2013This was a very good book, however it was a tough book to comprehend because it had hard words and a very deep meaning. Maybe highschool level. Other than that, i suggest a reader to have plenty of background knowledge on Holocaust before reading this because it won't make sense if you don't have schema. :D
December 31, 2011
I wish this book could be standard reading for kids learning about the Holocaust in High School. The truth, these accounts from the ghetto, change one's perspective and what one can remember about the war. This is education.
December 15, 2011
When I'm feeling a smug or happy - I read a few pages, brings me down to earth with a bump
June 22, 2013
Powerful. Beautifully put together.
April 13, 2017
Obviously, the accounts recorded here are invaluable, but this is the kind of book where I would prefer to see a lot of editorial work. It would be helpful to have the accounts and memories grounded in their context better; other than the occasional note where the contents cannot be verified, there is little comment by the editor.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews