In the Warsaw Ghetto
by Glenn Haybittle
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Jul 30 2019 | Archive Date Nov 30 2019
Description
Ala Silberman is training to be a dancer when the Germans invade Warsaw. Together with almost half a million other Jews, Ala and her family are forced into the ghetto, where she struggles with feelings of guilt at her comparative privileged circumstances. Then Ala's enigmatic teacher forms a dance company with the intention of putting on a performance for the ghetto's residents.
Max Silberman, Ala's uncle, is a bachelor, who still carries the flame for the girl he knew at university. She married someone else and he hasn't seen her for over a decade. When he meets her in the ghetto and discovers she and her two children have been abandoned by her Catholic husband all his dormant hopes are incongruously revived amidst the squalor and destitution surrounding him.
In the Warsaw Ghetto tells the deeply moving story of Ala and Max's struggle to preserve their aspirations in the midst of the inhumane conditions of the Warsaw ghetto, until the deportations to the death camps begin and the Jews organise themselves into a fighting force determined to oppose the Nazis.
Advance Praise
Praise for Glenn Haybittle's The Way Back to Florence:
"A quite brilliant novel of art, love and war told with extraordinary delicacy and poise." Alex Preston, author of In Love and War
"Vivid, compelling and hauntingly beautiful." Judith Kinghorn, author of The Last Summer
"A great novel - at once stylish, clever, exciting and deeply moving." Tim Binding, author of Island Madness
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781999968205 |
| PRICE | £9.99 (GBP) |
Featured Reviews
Michele F, Reviewer
What a truly remarkable story of WW2 about the Warsaw Ghetto. . My stomach was in knots from beginning to end reading this book. It was heart wrenching yet powerful showing the will that the Jews had to live. The ending was very emotional. The only parts of the book I didn’t like were the comments about sex. . It didn’t belong in this book at all and to me seemed pointless to include it. Would definitely recommend this book. Thank you netgalley for letting me give an honest review of this book.
Aislinn K, Reviewer
Wow, this book was certainly some read. I have read lots of books set during World War II and this has been one of the most gripping and haunting stories I have ever encountered. In the Warsaw Ghetto focuses on two central characters of Ala and Max and their experiences in the Warsaw Ghetto. I was enthralled from start to finish, it's an epic story that I read in one day. I really enjoyed this book apart from one thing, the amount of sexual reference. I felt that they were really unnecessary and took focus away from the real story of survival ship.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC
Shirley A. M, Reviewer
"In The Warsaw Ghetto" by Glenn Haybittle. A work of novel fiction basses on historical fact. All of mankind faces death..... Some without warning; and some by horrendous torture. I have read a good many books about WWII and the atrocities committed by the Germans . . . But none set by the bar of this book! Ala Silberman is a young woman...child training to be a dancer when the Nazis take over Poland. And, even in the depths of hell inside the ghetto, people make art, cook and dream....make love... and sing and become conditioned to survival amongst unspeakable tragedy. The author has written so very eloquently of life and death. I highly recommend. To be published in 2019.
Clara C, Educator
In the Warsaw ghetto is a wonderful book based on life inside one of the degrading settlements established to debase and ultimately wipeout the Jews during Hitler’s regime in World War 2. This was written from an entirely different perspective however. We followed the lives of Ala and her uncle Max, two somewhat wealthier Jews who initially did not suffer from the poverty and malnourishment inflicted on those living in the ghetto like so many who perished around them. They were good people who thrived on helping others. I particularly loved the references to Dr Korsack and his young orphans which were introduced occasionally through the novel as I really enjoyed that novel. Ala’s life continued as normal as much as possible while simultaneously witnessing those she knew so well fall around her. Her interest in sex and the growing desires of a young woman was a new angle not previously explored to such an extent in holocaust literature in my experience, and the author did so showing a great depth of understanding. The descriptive language used was well composed and assisted the reader form detailed images of every scene. The novel drew me in more and more as it progressed and in the second half of the novel I couldn’t read quickly enough, so was the eagerness I felt to discover what became of Sabina, Ora, Engenia, Marcel, Zanek, Max and Ala. The ending fitted the novel well however it was not at all the ending that I anticipated. I would recommend this novel to all. I don’t often give 5 starts but I feel in this instance 5 stars are highly deserved!
Educator 308336
Glenn Haybittle's new novel is a brilliantly told story of a family in Warsaw during the Holocaust.
Ala is a talented young dancer whose dream lies in the arts. The story centers on Ala and her uncle, Max, who is still dreaming of the love he lost to another man, Sabrina. GH plots out the grime details of families having to move and move again.
The degradation of the human body, mind, and spirit floods over from the very beginning.
We know history by heart. We know that Polish sympathizers helped to betray their neighbors, to work as policemen. What GH gives us is the authentic life of a family and minute details of their history, how they get along, and who does not help in survival. The story is, of course, about love and loss in the worst of times in human history.
If there is one book you must read now, it is this one. Fascism is on the rise in this world, and we must be well versed in its implications and drawn-out results.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this immense novel (July 30).
Readers who liked this book also liked:
