Memories of My Life in a Polish Village

(Hardback)

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Description

In her own words and with her own beautiful paintings and drawings, artist Toby Knobel Fluek (1926-2011) lovingly unfurls a unique view of Jewish life. She introduces us to her village, to her family, to the people among whom they lived; she shows us how customs and holidays were observed; and, with both feeling and restraint, she illustrates how this long-enduring way of life was shattered by World War II. She depicts her family's experiences through Russian occupation and the devastation wreaked by the Nazis-and, finally, her new beginning in America.

Reviews

Recommended by the Polish Cultural Institute New York

"Deeply moving.--Elie Wiesel, author of Night
A remarkable memoir . . . Fluek moves with powerful simplicity through the details of Jewish pre-war life, her struggle to survive the Nazi occupation, and her eventual emigration. . . . A powerful work.-- "Booklist"
Charming yet unsentimental . . . Fluek's quiet dignity as a chronicler is fortifying. . . . Her tranquility of palette and word, though never denying the sufferings of the past, is distinctly restorative.-- "Publishers Weekly"
Wrenchingly beautiful . . . a moving memoir . . . Fluek literally 'pictures' her childhood in both art and words--a warm Jewish family life that included farm chores, holiday observance, and good relations with fellow villagers both Jewish and Catholic. She then describes with great restraint the devastation of her world by World War II. The individual vignettes, such as "Walking Between Bullets" and "German Prisoners of War," are devastating in the use of spare prose and detailed art. She takes the remains of her family through the Russian occupation, the horrors left by the Nazis in Poland, to a happy ending in America.-- "Library Journal"
Toby Fluek's Memories of My Life in a Polish Village is a beautiful book. Its luminous art and water-clear prose form a world of exquisite images that in the end create a tone poem evocative of a vanished world--a poem that is not a dirge but a gentle celebration of hardships overcome and the triumph of the spirit over unspeakable horror.--Chaim Potok, New York Times-bestselling author of The Chosen and My Name Is Asher Lev

Author Bio

Toby Knobel Fluek (1926-2011) was born in the eastern Polish village of Czernica. In 1942, she and her family were forced by the Nazis into the nearby Brody ghetto. After her escape and years in hiding, she was married in 1949 and emigrated with her husband to New York, where she remained until her death. In 2018, The Florida Holocaust Museum added more than five hundred of Fluek's artworks and personal items to its collection, and it continues to share her work in exhibitions and outreach programs. Fluek's daughter, son-in-law, two grandsons and their wives, and four great-grandchildren also strive to ensure her extraordinary legacy.