We Must Not Think of Ourselves
A Novel
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4.4 • 133 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
**THE TODAY SHOW READ WITH JENNA DECEMBER 2023 PICK**
Inspired by a little-known piece of history—the underground group that kept an archive to ensure that the lives of Jewish occupants of the Warsaw Ghetto in World War II were not lost to history—this is a heart-wrenching novel of love and defiance that People calls "gripping, emotional, and against all odds, hopeful."
“This book is a masterpiece: profound, gripping, urgent, and beautiful.” —Madeline Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Circe and The Song of Achilles
On a November day in 1940, Adam Paskow becomes a prisoner in the Warsaw Ghetto, where the Jews of the city are cut off from their former lives and held captive by Nazi guards to await an uncertain fate. Weeks later, he is approached by a mysterious figure with a surprising request: Would he join a secret group of archivists working to preserve the truth of what is happening inside these walls?
Adam agrees and begins taking testimonies from his students, friends, and neighbors. He learns about their childhoods and their daydreams, their passions and their fears, their desperate strategies for safety and survival. The stories form a portrait of endurance in a world where no choices are good ones.
One of the people Adam interviews is his flatmate Sala Wiskoff, who is stoic, determined, and funny—and married with two children. Over the months of their confinement, in the presence of her family, Adam and Sala fall in love. As they desperately carve out intimacy, their relationship feels both impossible and vital, their connection keeping them alive.
But when Adam discovers a possible escape from the Ghetto, he is faced with an unbearable choice: whom can he save, and at what cost ?
Inspired by the testimony-gathering project with the code name Oneg Shabbat, New York Times bestselling author Lauren Grodstein draws readers into the lives of people living on the edge. Told with immediacy and heart, We Must Not Think of Ourselves is a piercing story of love, determination, and sacrifice.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Experience terror, agony, and hope in this profound historical novel inspired by real firsthand accounts of the Holocaust. It’s 1940 when Nazi forces imprison Adam Paskow—along with all of Warsaw’s Jews—in the cordoned-off section of the city known as the Warsaw Ghetto. Soon, he joins up with a secret group dedicated to documenting their experiences in writing, chronicling not just the everyday violence, murder, and starvation, but the individual lives that make up their community, so their stories aren’t lost forever. This courageous mission really happened, and author Lauren Grodstein draws on the chronicle (now called the Oneg Shabbat Archive) to depict figures like Filip, an 11-year-old boy who quietly plays with imaginary dinosaurs since he can no longer read about them at the library, and Szifra, a beautiful young woman who’ll do the unthinkable for her family.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Grodstein (Our Short History) draws on archival records for an eloquent story of the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII. Adam Paskow, a childless widower, teaches English to a group of children in the ghetto, where he lives in a cramped apartment with two other families, having been forced there from the spacious flat he once shared with his wife in the city's Mokotow district. Because of his language skills, he's tasked by Emanuel Ringelblum, a historical figure who organized relief agencies for Jews during the war, with interviewing their fellow residents and compiling an archive of their experiences. The novel is formed mainly from these interviews along with Paskow's observations about how life has changed after the German occupation. His interview subjects include 11-year-old Fillip Lescovec, who dreams of becoming a construction worker, and 48-year-old Emil Wiskoff, who can trace his family back to its Vilna roots in 1648. There's not much of a plot, though Grodstein makes her persecuted characters achingly human, such as when Paskow has a secret, life-affirming affair with one of the married women who shares his apartment. The story doesn't shy away from the period's horror, however; there are wrenching scenes of Nazis beating and killing men, women, and children on the streets. This will stay with readers.
