Here, on this spot -- The Nazi era -- The Soviet era -- The bystander -- Our goal is to transform ourselves -- An indelible memory and an unhealing scar -- Jewish ways of learning -- Landsman -- I helped what I can -- From the archives -- At the gate -- Leaving the Jerusalem of the north -- Voices of the Shavl Ghetto -- The bystander and the Jewish policeman -- Important dates in Lithuanian history.
Summary:
"Ellen Cassedy's longing to recover the Yiddish she'd lost with her mother's death eventually led her to Lithuania, once the 'Jerusalem of the North.' As she prepared for her journey, her uncle, sixty years after he'd left Lithuania in a boxcar, made a shocking disclosure about his wartime experience, and an elderly man from her ancestral town made an unsettling request. Gradually, what had begun as a personal journey broadened into a larger exploration of how the people of this country, Jews and non-Jews alike, are confronting their past in order to move forward into the future. How does a nation--how do successor generations, moral beings--overcome a bloody past? How do we judge the bystanders, collaborators, perpetrators, rescuers, and ourselves? These are the questions Cassedy confronts in We Are Here, one woman's exploration of Lithuania's Jewish history combined with a personal exploration of her own family's place in it. Digging through archives with the help of a local whose motives are puzzling to her; interviewing natives, including an old man who wants to 'speak to a Jew' before he dies; discovering the complications encountered by a country that endured both Nazi and Soviet occupation--Cassedy finds that it's not just the facts of history that matter, but what we choose to do with them."--p. [4] of cover.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.