Escape to Life: A Journey Through the Holocaust: The Memories of Maria and William Herskovic

by Patricia Herskovic

Caught in the crossfire of Nazi oppression, two people triumph in this story of courage, luck and passion during one of the darkest moments of the 20th Century. After surviving a perilous escape from... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9653081527
• ISBN13: 9789653081529
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Yad Vashem Pubns
• Length: 218 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Hate, love, and hope in such close proximity

Escape To Life follows one family's amazing, horrifying journey through the Holocaust. It is a firsthand account of awful events in human history that you will read and wish that they had not occurred on this planet. But they did, and this account is as tragic as it is ultimately triumphant and hopeful. Something I found truly amazing is how quick the victims in this book (of which there are many) are willing to offer kind excuses for the people who betray them and hurt them most. A Rabbi refuses Willy aid, and Willy's first thought is one of compassion and understanding. The Rabbi must be afraid. He's not a terrible person, he must just be as terrified as the rest of the poor victims. The same for neighbors who could have taken Willy and his fellow escapees in, but deny them. Again, Willy does not attribute this to hate or evil-doing. He attributes it to fear and paranoia. Where the victims could have been bitter and remorseless, they are forgiving and empathetic. Truly inspiring and downright amazing, coming from a man (Willy) who learns that his wife Esther and daughters were killed in the Auschwitz gas chambers. Amazing, considering that his future wife Mirele discovers that her first husband died right after the liberation as a result of the Nazi death camp. Hope is the message printed on every page. Hope that human beings are not evil, but they can be misled and coerced into doing evil things. Even the title of the book is positive and hopeful -- Escape To Life could have very easily been Escape From Death. But instead the message is upbeat. Life goes on, but the past cannot be forgotten. Life goes on, but the horrible truths from our past must be learned from so they never happen again. Personally, my heart beat faster with every flip of the page. I wanted every one of these kind, decent people to survive and live long, happy lives. But that was not the case. I wanted every married couple broken apart to be reunited with their children. But that was not the case. What does happen is people are horribly mistreated and withstand hate on an immeasurable scale, and ultimately succeed. William and Mirele survive and build a life and family together and are eternally grateful to those who aided them. I gained a lot from reading this book. 'Tragic' doesn't begin to describe it, yet 'hopeful' somehow describes it perfectly. It's a book you will read and never forget. I think that was the idea behind its existence.

Absorbing, sometimes suspenseful, sometimes brutally severe

Escape To Life: A Journey Through The Holocaust is an amazingly upbeat biography of Maria and William Herskovic, two remarkable and determined holocaust survivors. William escaped an Auschwitz labor camp and became one of the first recorded eyewitnesses to Hitler's crimes against humanity, and is credited with the rescue of hundreds from the gas chambers; Maria was a teenage girl who hid her parents from the Nazis and daily risked life to provide them with food. An absorbing, sometimes suspenseful, sometimes brutally severe account of the struggle to survive in the face of humans perpetrating inhuman cruelty, Escape To Life is a welcome and impressive contribution to Holocaust Studies collections and reading lists.