JBC Author Talk (Virtual) by Samuel Kassow on “Warsaw Testament,” by Rokhl Auerbach

Thursday, 11/21 at 7pm on Zoom

Samuel Kassow Presents a Jewish Book Council Author Talk about his translation of Warsaw Testament, by Rokhl Auerbach

Co-hosted by Falmouth Jewish Congregation and the Worcester JCC

Open to the public and free of charge, but registration is required to access this Zoom event.

Click here to register: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEpd-GhpjgqH9z4XwFP6Zm7zvqBx1MNgzF5

Join Samuel Kassow for a discussion of his translation of Rohkl Auerbach’s Warsaw Testament (White Goat Press).

Born in Lanowitz, a small vil­lage in rur­al Podolia, Rokhl Auer­bach was a jour­nal­ist, lit­er­ary crit­ic, mem­oirist, and a mem­ber of the War­saw Yid­dish lit­er­ary com­mu­ni­ty before the Holo­caust. Upon the Ger­man inva­sion and occu­pa­tion of Poland in 1939, she was tasked by his­to­ri­an and social activist Emanuel Ringel­blum to run a soup kitchen for the starv­ing inhab­i­tants of the War­saw Ghet­to and lat­er to join his top-secret ghet­to archive, the Oyneg Shabes. One of only three sur­viv­ing mem­bers of the archive project, Auerbach’s wartime and post­war writ­ings became a cru­cial source of infor­ma­tion for his­to­ri­ans of both pre­war Jew­ish War­saw and the War­saw Ghet­to. After immi­grat­ing to Israel in 1950, she found­ed the wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny divi­sion at Yad Vashem and played a key role in the devel­op­ment of Holo­caust remem­brance. Her mem­oir War­saw Tes­ta­ment, based on her wartime writ­ings, paints a vivid por­trait of the city’s pre­war Yid­dish lit­er­ary and artis­tic com­mu­ni­ty and of its destruc­tion at the hands of the Nazis.

Auerbach was a journalist, literary critic, and one of only three surviving members of the Oyneg Shabes, historian Emanuel Ringelbum’s top-secret group of archivists in the Warsaw Ghetto. Upon immigrating to Israel in 1950 she founded the witness testimony division Yad Vashem and played a foundational role in the development of Holocaust memory. Warsaw Testament, a memoir based on her wartime writings both in the ghetto and on the Aryan side of the occupied city, provides an unmatched portrait of the last days of Warsaw’s Yiddish literary and cultural community and of Auerbach’s own struggle to survive.

Samuel Kas­sow, Northam Pro­fes­sor of His­to­ry at Trin­i­ty Col­lege, holds a Ph.D. from Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty. He has been a vis­it­ing pro­fes­sor at many insti­tu­tions and helped plan the POLIN Muse­um of the His­to­ry of Pol­ish Jews in War­saw. Among his var­i­ous pub­li­ca­tions is Who Will Write Our His­to­ry: Emanuel Ringel­blum and the Secret Ghet­to Archive (Indi­ana Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2007).