Two for the Devil

By Allen Hoffman

In Moscow at the height of the 1936 Stalinist purges, Grisha Shwartzman discovers on Rosh Hashanah--the Jewish New Year and Day of Judgment--that he is in danger of liquidation by the secret police he serves. In 1942, Yechiel Katzman finds himself on a train of imprisoned Jews as it leaves the Warsaw ghetto on Yom Kippur--the Day of Atonement--for resettlement in the East. Stalin and Hitler decree certain death, but in the course of their experiences Grisha and Yechiel discover Jewish fates. Through memory, both men gain community, dignity, and the awareness of sanctity, Grisha's Soviet Rosh Hashanah and Yechiel's Nazi Yom Kippur are truly Days of Awe.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0789203979
• ISBN13: 9780789203977
• Release Date: September 1998
• Publisher: Abbeville Press
• Length: 254 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

semi-surreal account of Jewish reality 1936-1943

An extremely well written account of two losely connected characters: one a Jewish member of KGB circa 1936, another a Jew on the way to Treblinka circa 1943. The first account captures the atmosphere of Stalin's reign of terror with an incredible surreal quality reminiscent of Bulgakov. The account of the trek to Treblinka, while not as strong, has its poignant moments. The whole is tied nicely through a prophetic figure of a fictional Rebbe living in the Midwest of the USA. The book reads so well (and quickly) it'd be a shame to miss it.