Анин Штетл

by Лоренс А. Кобен

A rare view of a childhood in a European ghetto. Anna Spector was born in 1905 in Korsun, a Ukrainian town on the Ros River, eighty miles south of Kiev. Held by Poland until 1768 and annexed by the Tsar in 1793 Korsun and its fluid ethnic population were characteristic of the Pale of Settlement in Eastern Europe: comprised of Ukrainians, Cossacks, Jews and other groups living uneasily together in relationships punctuated by violence. Anna’s father left Korsun in 1912 to immigrate to America, and Anna left in 1919, having lived through the Great War, the Bolshevik Revolution, and part of the ensuing civil war, as well as several episodes of more or less organized pogroms—deadly anti-Jewish riots begun by various invading military detachments during the Russian Civil War and joined by some of Korsun’s peasants. In the early 1990s Anna met Lawrence A. Coben, a medical doctor seeking information about the shtetls to recapture a sense of his own heritage. Anna had near-perfect recall of her daily life as a girl and young woman in the last days in one of those historic but doomed communities. Her rare account, the product of some 300 interviews, is valuable because most personal memoirs of ghetto life are written by men. Also, very often, Christian neighbors appear in ghetto accounts as a stolid peasant mass assembled on market days, as destructive mobs, or as an arrogant and distant collection of government officials and nobility. Anna’s story is exceptionally rich in a sense of the Korsun Christians as friends, neighbors, and individuals. Although the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe are now virtually gone, less than 100 years ago they counted a population of millions. The firsthand records we have from that lost world are therefore important, and this view from the underrecorded lives of women and the young is particularly welcome. Lawrence A. Coben, M.D., is Associate Professor Emeritus of Neurology at Washington University in Saint Louis.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

343 pages, Paperback

First published January 5, 2007

Reviews

[Hermien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating insight into life in a Ukrainian Shtetl.

[Jennifer S. Brown]

This nonfiction story of Anna Spector, a young girl in Ukraine, was told to Coben over a series of interviews. I'd intended to read just a few chapters for research, but I was so captivated by the story and by Anna that I devoured the entire book. The book covers her life in Korsun, a Ukranian shtetl, from her birth in 1905 to 1919 when she, her mother, and her sisters decided to leave for the U.S. They had to wait for over two years in Russia before being allowed to depart.

The stories are detailed, and yet Coben seems to have done an excellent job factchecking them and noting where there are inconsistencies or confusion. Many of the stories are absolutely heartbreaking, and the tribulations of these Jews in the Old Country are astounding. Made me truly appreciate what my own Ukrainian ancestors went through and how lucky I am to be here today.

[Valeria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Давно я не читала настолько хорошо скомпонованную историческую книгу. История еврейской девочки, старательно записанная и перепроверенная её другом, увлекла с первых страниц. Принимая во внимание тот факт, что книга писалась по воспоминаниям главной героини, когда последняя была в уже довольно преклонном возрасте, автор уделил много внимания тому, чтобы перепроверить факты и показать читателю, что на записанные воспоминания можно положиться в плане достоверности.

Читая книгу, поражаешься, какой стремительный прыжок сделало человечество в ХХ веке - как с точки зрения усовершенствования своего быта, так и с точки зрения увеличения длительности жизни. На примере одной семьи проживаешь и историю земель центральной Украины первых двух десятилетий прошлого века - как части Российской империи, так и во времена короткой независимости, которая, судя по воспоминаниям Анны Спектор, не очень повлияла на жизнь простых людей даже в не столь отдаленном от столицы городе, как Корсунь. В книге есть и краткая справка о том, как евреи заселяли территорию современной Украины и какую роль играла эта нация в экономике нашей страны и соседней Польши.

Как по мне, так книга способна стать отличным дополнением к курсу истории Украины в школе и даже must read для студентов исторических факультетов в рамках курса новейшей истории Украины - это я как выпускница исторического факультета говорю :)