The Empty Bowl

In The Empty Bowl: Poems of the Holocaust and After, Holocaust survivor Judith H. Sherman strives to record trauma through art. Her poems, written largely in the words of a fifteen-year-old survivor, provide historical entry into the Holocaust. Put simply, the poems explore the reality of the events experienced by Sherman in her determination to survive—from first leaving home to illegal border crossings, hiding, capture, imprisonment by the Gestapo, the horrors of the Ravensbrück concentration camp, liberation, and, finally, a full life of joys and challenges that came after, including the unyielding intrusions of the past and hopeful celebration of a compassionate future.