I CHOOSE LIFE : TWO LINKED STORIES OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVAL AND REBIRTH / Jerry L. Jennings and Goldie and Sol Finkelstein, with Joseph (ID: 33398)
Authorship or Source:
- Jennings, Jerry L.
- Finkelstein, Goldie, 1929-
- Finkelstein, Sol, 1925-
- Finkelstein, Joseph S.
Year:
2009
Title or Main Description:
I CHOOSE LIFE : TWO LINKED STORIES OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVAL AND REBIRTH / Jerry L. Jennings and Goldie and Sol Finkelstein, with Joseph S. Finkelstein.
Place Published or Holding Institution:
[Bloomington, IN] : Xlibris
Description:
142 p : ill., docs., facsims., map, ports. ; 23 cm.
Type of Work:
Book
ISBN or ISSN:
- 978-1-4415-0306-0 (Hardcover)
- 978-1-4415-0305-3 (Softcover)
Museum or Other Institution Holdings:
- Survivors Registry Collection: Located in 2nd Floor Public Reference Area .
- USHMM Library Collection: DS135.B383 N586 2007.
Keywords:
- Mauthausen (Concentration camp) --Registers.
- Hinterbrühl (Concentration camp) --Registers.
- Jews --Poland --Sosnowiec.
- Jews --Poland --Radom.
- Gräben (Concentration camp) --Registers.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) --Personal narratives.
- Finkelstein, Sol.
- Finkelstein, Goldie.
- Cukier family --Genealogy
- Finkelstein family --Genealogy
- Finkelsztajn family.
- [Additional Geographic Keywords: Graeben, Wels, Sosnowitz, Bergen-Belsen]
Abstract:
- Contains several facsimiles of excerpts from original concentration camp name registers and other documents, including:
- -- Facsimile of excerpt from Mauthausen concentration camp prisoner arrivals of February 2, 1945 ("Liste der Zugänge vom 2. Februar 1945", p. [51])
- -- Facsimiles of two excerpts from prisoner transfers from Mauthausen concentration camp to the subcamp of Hinterbrühl via Floridsdorf, March 7, 1945 ("Veränderungsmeldung für den 7. [März 1945]", p. [53-54]
- -- Facsimile of excerpt of shift registers of inmate forced laborers at the Graeben concentration camp, January 15-19, 1945 ("Schwinghalle -- Ballenpresse -- Faserkeller", p. [88])
- "'I Choose Life' is the true, first person account of two Jewish youths, Sol and Goldie, who survived Nazi concentration camps and transcended despair by choosing life. The book title derives from a harrowing encounter between Sol and the Commandant in Auschwitz. The Nazi cruelly forced Sol to choose between execution by hanging or firing squad. Sol, then 19-years-old, defied him, declaring, 'If I have a choice, I choose life!' Goldie Cukier, a 13-year-old girl, and her older sister were rounded up in a random raid in their neighborhood. An SS guard gave Goldies father the choice of freeing only one of his two daughters. Goldie volunteered to be taken so that her sister would be spared. It was the last she would ever see her family alive. 'I Choose Life' describes idyllic childhoods in Radom and Sosnowiec, Poland, in warm and loving families imbued with Jewish pride and values; years of darkness, suffering, separation, loss and death; raids, selections, forced labor camps, cattle cars, and death marches; and survival in Auschwitz, Mauthausen and Bergen-Belsen. Sol says, 'A sane person cannot imagine what it was like.' For years, Sol and Goldie never shared their stories, not even with each other. Now, they have decided to tell their stories, to leave a legacy to their grandchildren, and to help ensure the Holocaust is never repeated."--Excerpt from the Internet webpage titled "About the Book" at http://www.ichooselifebook.com/ (Accessed: May 1, 2009).
Language and Other Notes:
- Contents:
- Map of Significant Locations -- Family Tree. -- PART 1: SOL'S STORY: Good Life -- The Blood Red Moon -- Descending -- Dante's Inferno -- Death March to Mauthausen -- Depths of the Earth -- From the Valley of Bones. -- PART II: GOLDIE'S STORY: High Ceilings and Light -- A Child Alone -- Babylon -- Displaced Person -- "Pick Up" Girl -- America. -- PART III: EPILOGUE: Chicken Farmers -- An Extraordinary Deliverance. -- Afterword -- A Note From the Writer -- Timeline of Historical Events -- Acknowledgements.
- "I would like to extend thanks to the researchers of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. (Randolph Davis, Molly Abramowitz, and William Connelly) and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel, for securing and explaining historical records of the Finkelstein and Cukier families from the International Red Cross archives and elsewhere."--Acknowledgements, p. 141.
- LCCN: 2009900305
Resource Center Cataloging Notes:
Survivors Registry staff received book as gift from the author April 2009.