THE BOOK FAIR

Review:

Alicia Appleman-Jurman grew up in the town of Buczacz, Poland, with her brothers, Moshe, Zachary, Bunio and Herzl.  The town was home to some six thousand Jews in a community of eighteen thousand people.  In 1938, Alicia was eight years old.  In 1939, after Germany’s invasion of western Poland, Poland lay divided between Germany and Russia.

Alicia’s family members first fell victim to the anti-Semitic Russians.  After the German invasion of eastern Poland, in the fall of 1941, Buczacz fell to German hands.  The Germans began their process of Judenrein in Buczacz. Alicia’s father, taken in a round-up, is never seen again.  Shortly after, Alicia’s brother Bunio is captured for a “work camp”.  The Jews of Buczacz are removed to the ghetto.  Life is difficult and food is scare; hiding places are built in the homes.  The Ukrainians help the Germans find the Jews, ransacking homes and killing the unfortunate Jews found.

The author tells of her experiences, of the endless rounds-ups she and her family members survived, and of those that did not.  She relates the tale of how she and her mother and brothers narrowly escaped the village and went into hiding in the countryside.  She elaborates on the hardships her family suffered and of how they survived.  In particular, she writes of one villager who helped her.  She also writes of her experiences with the Partisans.   At the war’s end, the author returns home and reveals her findings, her devastation, and her feelings of determination to survive.

Alicia Appleman-Jurman’s moving and descriptive auto-biography reveals the desperation of a young woman’s trial to survive, and keep her family alive.