cover image NEW DAWN: A Triumph of Life After the Holocaust

NEW DAWN: A Triumph of Life After the Holocaust

Helen Sendyk, , foreword by Yaffa Eliach. . Syracuse Univ., $29.95 (192pp) ISBN 978-0-8156-0735-9

In this moving sequel to Sendyk's 1992 Holocaust memoir, The End of Days, we follow the teenage author, her surviving sister and their cousin on a frightening but ultimately redeeming postwar journey. Liberated from the concentration camp, they trek back to their native Chrzanow in Poland to find a "hostile ghost town filled with strangers who... showed no kindness to our plight." Joining a band of survivors seeking to enter British Mandate Palestine, they journey to Italy, where they board a ship to cross the Mediterranean. Delays by British authorities lead to a hunger strike but, eventually, Exodus-like, the ship, with 1,000 refugees on board, sails for Palestine. There Sendyk is reunited with her surviving brother and settles in Tel Aviv, viewing firsthand the violent founding of the state of Israel. She recounts deadly clashes among Jews, British and Arabs as well as the ecstasy of hearing the U.N. has voted for a state of Israel. Always above the sweep of events, the narrator is a thoughtful defender of the faith who captures the emotional and philosophical aspects of these struggles. When this powerful memoir ends at the 1956 war, Sendyk is a wife, mother and administrator—but always a survivor. 21 b&w photos. (Sept.)