Adena BERNSTEIN
LIVING AMONG THE DEAD
My Grandmother's Holocaust Survival Story of Love and Strength
This is the story of one remarkable young woman's unimaginable journey through the rise of the Nazi regime, the Second World War, and the aftermath. Mania Lichtenstein’s dramatic story of survival is narrated by her granddaughter and her memories are interwoven with beautiful passages of poetry and personal reflection. Holocaust survivor, Mania Lichtenstein, used writing as a medium to deal with the traumatic effects of the war.
Many Jews did not die in concentration camps, but were murdered in their lifelong communities, slaughtered by mass killing units, and then buried in pits. As a young girl, Mania witnessed the horrors while doing everything within her power to subsist. She lived in WÅ‚odzimierz, north of Lvov (Ukraine), was interned for three years in the labor camp nearby, managed to escape and hid in the forests until the end of the war.
Although she was the sole survivor of her family, Mania went on to rebuild a new life in the United States, with a new language and new customs, always carrying with her the losses of her family and her memories.
Seventy-five years after liberation, we are still witnessing acts of cruelty born out of hatred and discrimination. Living among the Dead reminds us of the beautiful communities that existed before WWII, the lives lost and those that lived on, and the importance to never forget these stories so that history does not repeat itself.
Educator's Guide
REVIEWS
"Adena Bernstein Astrowsky describes an important and tragic chapter in world history in Living among the Dead. In sharing the story of her grandmother throughWWII and the Holocaust, she reminds us that we must remember these experiences
so that they are never allowed to happen again."
Harvey Mackay
#1 New York Times bestselling author of Swim with The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive
"Using both her own words and her grandmother's, Astrowsky weaves the story of survival against all odds during the Holocaust.
Before I had even finished the book, I felt I knew "Bubbie" and could hear her unwavering voice through her poetry and her amazing story
of war and strife in Eastern Europe."
Kimberly Klett
Museum Teacher 2003-04, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Executive Deputy Director, Educators' Institute for HumanRights.
"In order to understand history's impact is to have first-hand accounts of those who lived it; it is also important to never forget the events of the Holocaust so that history does not repeat itself. Living among the Dead is an excellent book that does both." -
Paul Becker
Scottsdale Unified School District Secondary Language Arts Coach
"Living among the Dead transforms the study of the Holocaust from a distant event to a personal journey. As a teacher, I believe reading this book will help my students develop a richer, more intimate understanding of this period in history, and better equip them to do the important work of sharing the lessons of the Holocaust with future generations." -
Sarah Armistead, M.P.A.
8th Grade History Teacher
"I found Living Among the Dead very emotional and poignant. The imagery was so clear and expressive, and I admired Bubbie for her strength and spirit. Every Holocaust survivor has a story to share. I was glad to be given the opportunity to learn about Mania "Bubbie" Lichtenstein
and other Jews who perished in WW2."
Michelle Stanley for Readers' Favorite
"What stood out for me is how different this book is from many of the other Holocaust books. I was most impressed with two things:
1) the amount of important documentary information, which is often not known or forgotten
2) the details about her grandmother's life in labor camps.
I feel it is a very important and well-written book that the world needs to read."
Ben Lesser
Holocaust Survivor, Author, Speaker, and Founder of Zachor: Holocaust Remembrance Foundation
"For most Americans alive at the end of WWII, news of the Holocaust came in the form of photographs in USA’s most popular magazine - LIFE – heaps of skeletal remains and barely human faces staring into cameras General Eisenhower ordered to document Nazi horrors in “concentration camps.” A few years later, the “best-seller” was by the brilliant teenage daughter of a German-Jewish family hiding in Holland. Still read in many American schools, The Diary of Anne Frank ends without revealing the terrible fate we now know all but Anne’s father shared with “the six million.”
After half a Century, we have come to know the limits of these best-known sources. Most Jews killed were not from Germany – but Eastern Europe. And most did not die in “camps” - but in their lifelong communities, slaughtered by Einsatzgruppen, then buried in pits, up to tens of thousands a day. The genius of Living Among the Dead is not just that it is one of only a few memoirs to describe this form of death – 20,000 Jews slaughtered in Polish city of Wlodzimierz alone – but also conveys how Jews lived in Eastern Europe, which large numbers of today’s Jews identify as their place of origin.
Ostensibly co-written by two generations of authors – grandmother and grand-daughter - both self-designated “Memorial Candles” - there are actually three narrators: (1) the 17-year-old girl who cheats death by what she calls “fate” and we can see as an uncanny ability to always align herself with good people who can help her; (2) the mature woman she became, with the wisdom to flee “blood-soaked” Europe for Canada, then immigrate to America, working as a bookkeeper, becoming an avid reader of literary classics in multiple languages, persisting in writing her memoirs past loss of eyesight; and (3) her lawyer grand-daughter who persisted through years of sometimes difficult interviews, then skillfully constructed a narrative, beginning with the B’nai Mitzvot of her twins, days after death of their beloved B-Bubbie – the quintessential “survivor” who (as the author wrote) “wanted to be sure the rest of the world did not forget the beauty of the culture her family enjoyed before it was so despicably destroyed.”
Marcia Ruth
Retired Writer & Editor