The style of this novel kept my interest- I liked the interviews throughout. The story is of course devastating and heavy, a widower surviving in the Warsaw ghetto and the people around him. As a teacher, his interactions with the children help lighten parts of the novel. Sometimes this subject matter can be difficult to get through, but I found this to be a quick read that I did not avoid. Adam does spend a lot of time talking about different languages- Polish, Yiddish, English and German- I would have liked to see more integration of those languages throughout (there is some, but sparing). Overall, a good read and would recommend to others.

At the end of a school day in 1940 Warsaw, a man approaches Adam Paskow in his classroom and hands him a small notebook. He asks him to write down everything about the people around him, their families, their routines, “without deciding what is significant” he says. Be a camera, a dictaphone, he says.
Paskow is told that others have been recruited for this project, too, and he accepts the assignment. The man, Emmanual Ringelblum, explains it is an archival project in which Paskow will help write the history of the Jews and their lives in Warsaw before and after the ghetto.
The opening chapters of Lauren Grodstein’s novel, We Must Not Think of Ourselves, are filled with foreshadowing. The interviews, observations, and notations he records carry us into Paskow’s world. Through them, the reader becomes acquainted with his students, neighbors, and friends. The introspective first-person point of view also serves to immerse the reader in Paskow’s world as he remembers happier times as a teacher and when he and his wife, as newlyweds, planned their future. Although widowed when the story begins, his roots in Warsaw still run deep, and despite the urging of some, he resists leaving Poland believing that England and America’s declaration of war on Germany is imminent. As the oppression of the Jews in the city tightens, families flee, Paskow’s classroom dwindles to a handful of students, and he also is forced to give up his apartment and move to the ghetto. There, conditions are ever more suffocating, ever tightening, ever more desperate, and life is reduced to the barest forms of day-to-day existence. Paskow is forced to ponder his own fate.
Grodstein based her novel on the Oneg Shabbat Archive which can be visited in Warsaw today. It consists of diary entries, sketches, postcards, and all manner of ephemera such as candy wrappers, tram tickets, and posters collected by the dozens of archivists recruited by the real-life Emmanuel Ringelbaum, the man who approached Grodstein’s fictional protagonist Paskow.
While we may understand the magnitude of historic events, it is the everyday, personal things to which we hardly give notice, such as those candy wrappers and postcards that give poignancy to those historic events and remind us all that such events happen to real people.

Heartbreaking and beautiful. The characters are complex and true, the author’s attention to historical detail is exacting, and it raises wonderful, complex questions about hope, human nature, and morality. Grodstein captures grief, desperation, and cruelty as well as the indomitability of the human spirit.
This is a 2023 must-read and a perfect book club pick.

We Must Not Think of Ourselves is a mostly fiction novel about a real-life group of testimony gatherers called Oneg Shabbat who collected stories of those living in the ghetto of Warsaw during the WWII. As someone who has read a lot of WWII historical fiction, I appreciated reading about another piece of history I had not known before. Though I would have appreciated more of an afterward about the real-life people, it is still a well written, gripping and provoking novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Algonquin books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I feel humbled and quite small after finishing that. Humbled because of what the people who went before us went through, simply for the fact that they existed. Quite small comes from feeling like I know nothing of struggles in life. Reading historical fiction (based on true life events) has become a recent pleasure (if that's even the right word). It makes me feel like I forgot to pay close enough attention in school or that I've relegated those things to the back of my mind. We really must never forget this happened and could/will happen again (at the very least on a smaller scale) because people cherish power more than human life. Now I will climb down off my soapbox and go think about this some more!!

Typically I love WW2 novels, especially when they show a tale of resistance. This book, was pretty slow moving. It didn't get very exciting. The characters weren't developed well enough to really care too much about them. It's unfortunate that this book fell a little flat because it has good bones and a lot of potential.

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for sending me this book for review.

"We Must Not Think of Ourselves" is one of the best books on the Jewish outlook of World War II that I have ever read. Grodstein manages to create believable characters that cause mixed emotions in readers throughout the novel. Readers will be unsure who to root for; the children who are simply doing all they can to survive, the adults who vividly remember life before the ghetto, or maybe even all of them in their own ways.

A great read for any historical fiction lovers to get a new view rarely seen inside the Jewish ghettos of war.

Although there are myriad tales set in and around the Holocaust/ World War II/Nazi Party, We Must Not Think of Ourselves offers a fresh perspective. Set in the Warsaw Ghetto, the novel follows the path of Adam Paskow as he documents the lives of the Polish Jews during the Holocaust. It is this "interview" format that creates a fresh perspective into the lives of those he meets. Although the situation is dire, the reader is able to see hope and determination in the daily lives of each character. It is a bittersweet story of loss and love and redemption; I did not want it to end.

Highly recommend and hoping there is a sequel!

Lauren Grodstein takes the reader back to the horrors of The Warsaw Ghetto during WWII. The nazis have invaded Poland and Jews have been rounded up, either placed in a walled ghetto or sent by train to extermination camps.

Adam Paskow, an English teacher in a fine lyceum, is a widower. His wife, Katia, was a christian and their marriage was not looked upon fondly by either his or her family. Her father, however, favored Katia of all his children and, for that reason, takes some interest in Adam's welfare. When he visits Adam and asks him to return Katia's jewelry, Adam knows that things are getting very bad. In exchange for the jewelry, Adam will be granted an apartment in the ghetto. Adam has to leave almost everything behind, carrying what he can manage in a wheelbarrow.

The apartment he's been granted is tiny, derelict and shared by two families and Adam, eleven people in all. Adam hangs a sheet up in an attempt to make his sleeping space private. Food is scarce and the children are forced to scrounge and barter for anything that can make life easier on the families.

The horror of the ghetto is described in uncompromising narrative, The people beg, have mental breakdowns, are killed in the street, sell their bodies to nazis for food and passports, and try to cope with their situation in any way they can. Their bodies turn skeletal, their eyes vacant and their hope becomes destroyed.

Despite the devastation, Adam manages to teach an English class to the ghetto children. A speaker of five languages himself, Adam uses poetry, novels and conversation to teach the children. As time goes by, despite being childless himself, Adam grows to love his students.

Fear, horror, anger and numbness are the prevalent emotions of the ghettoed jews. However, despite this, some feel hope and dream of ways to break free of the nazi imprisonment and travel to another country. What is even more remarkable, is to watch the formation of love between Adam and a married woman who shares the apartment.

As part of a group called Oneg Shabbat, Adam is responsible for chronicling the lives of the ghetto's inhabitants so that one day, others may know what transpired and never forget the people who lived and perished in the Warsaw Ghetto.

I’ve read a lot of Holocaust fiction over the years but after awhile they all seem the same. Based on the true story of a secret group of archivists in the Warsaw Ghetto, this novel has a fresh narrative that I found engrossing and moving. I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.

Thank you to NetGalley for my review copy.

I read this book in one sitting, which wasn't planned - I just found myself completely absorbed. And now that I've finished I wish I would have gone slower - there's so much to process and reflect on. The mark of a good book: both propulsive and thought-provoking.

I've read a great deal of historical fiction (not to mention nonfiction) about World War II, but We Must Not Think of Ourselves feels unique to me. It takes place almost entirely in a ghetto in Poland - a place with its own (increasing) horrors, but also a place all too full of real people with the full scope of their humanity, their hopes and dreams and jokes and emotions in spite of everything. The characters are quite vivid - not just Adam (the protagonist) or Sala (his love interest), but each of the students he teaches and the people he interviews as part of an archive project.

I expected the overall feel of this book to be somber, and that's certainly the case, but it's also bittersweet and joyful and agonizing and infuriating. I'm writing this review immediately after finishing - so it's fresh in my mind, but hard to articulate! I guess this is how I'd sum up the question at the heart of this book: In circumstances in which there are no good choices, and in which it's not a question of whether people will be killed but how many and when, and you have limited control over your fate - how do you go on? And how do you aim not just for continued existence, but for genuine survival? I'll be thinking about these things for a long time.

4.5 stars, rounded up to 5. Thanks to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

An intense look into the Holocaust and saving others.
A good book for discussion.

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC.

Lauren Grodstein's We Must Not Think of Ourselves is a fabulous addition to WWII/Holocaust literature and shines a light on a group of monumental importance. Teachers should consider pairing this novel with the 2018 documentary Who Will Write Our Story.

This story takes place in the Warsaw Ghetto in the early 1940s after the Nazis invaded Poland. Jewish people from all walks of life had been forced into living in a designated area, crowded into small apartments with people they didn't know. There was never enough food, heat or other necessities.

I have read quite a bit about WW II and the Holocaust, but I had never read a book so focused on the daily life of specific characters as this novel did. I found it extremely interesting, and the author brought each character to life. I really enjoyed this book, and I wished it hadn't ended when it did.

4.25/5 stars! The premise of this book was so important and significant and I was really looking forward to reading this historical fiction story. This story was gripping from the very first page. I felt myself connecting with Adam, mourning the suffering of those in his trapped neighborhood, and crying my way through the book. Not for the faint of heart, but a really special and important story.

I received an advance review copy for free through NetGalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily