Genya Finkelstein. Genya. New York: GT Publishing 1998,142 pp., ISBN 1-57719-616-3.

Genya, the memoirs of Genya Finkelstein, was originally written in Hebrew and translated into English in 1998. Its aim is to make the reader think about how he or she would have turned out, if he or she had experienced what happened to young Genya. Secondly, this book wants to preserve a record of the lives of Jews in Eastern Europe prior to the Holocaust.
Genya Finkelstein was born on December 15, 1930 in a shtetl (small town) called Berezna in the Ukraine. The majority of its residents were Jews who dealt primarily in fabrics, leathers, and lumber. There were also tailors and shoemakers, teachers, butchers, and repairmen among them.

The book begins with a detailed description of Genya’s family life, what religious tradition meant for them, and how festivities such as Passover were important parts of their lives. One gets an insight into all the little details Genya remembers about her childhood; for example, the way her mother prepared "gefilte fish" (stuffed fish) in the kitchen. The Finkelsteins were not too wealthy, but "a sense of plenty was always present in our home." (p. 19) It was a childhood full of joy, a childhood "amidst an abundance of love and beauty." (p. 14)

By that time Hitler was already in power in Germany (he came to power in 1933) and the Nuremberg laws had been passed. Genya’s early childhood is vastly different from what is to come. The upcoming catastrophe is already in the back of the readers’ mind.

In September 1939, Berezna was invaded and occupied by the Russians. Anti-Semitism increased immediately, and the Finkelsteins were marked for deportation to Siberia because the communists wanted to confiscate their property. Thus, for Genya, persecution was a part of her life even before the Nazis came to Russia in 1941. Within days after the Nazi invasion in June of 1941, talk of Jews being murdered was heard everywhere. "Overnight I changed from a happy, smiling child to a mature young woman experienced in suffering," Genya writes (p. 40).

The German invasion in 1941 meant a string of harsh decrees against the Jews. Genya was eleven at that point and her childhood was over. Not only did the Finkelsteins have to worry about every stranger they met, Genya was also being attacked in school. After her grandparents were murdered, the family decided to escape to the forests, where they almost died in the brutally cold Ukrainian winter. Life was overshadowed by hunger, cold, and the ever-present fear of being found.

When Ukrainians - as henchmen of the Nazis - finally discovered the family, they were dragged to the Berezna Ghetto, "a place of terrible filth, lice, disease and especially the most awful fear." (p. 56) Miraculously, they were smuggled out by a friend, the wife of a farmer, and they found refuge with a priest called Ilchuk, who hid them in a shed in his yard. There the whole family stayed, fearful of being discovered.

One night in 1942, Genya was suddenly awakened by the sound of barking dogs. She heard voices in Ukrainian and before Genya realized what was going on, shots were fired. She was shot in the hip. Everybody around her was murdered. Genya survived by pretending to be dead.

Many Ukrainians were anti-Semitic and ultra-nationalistic. They helped kill Jews because Germany had promised these nationalists a country of their own, independent of the Soviet Union. Without "the overwhelming hatred the Ukrainians had for the Jews, the Germans would never have achieved such success in eliminating the Jews of Poland," Genya writes (p. 56).

Left alone at age 11, for Genya the upcoming years meant a struggle for life. Being afraid to admit that she was Jewish, Genya pretended to be a Ukrainian orphan. People believed her and she managed to work as a maid for local residents in Babin.

Death itself was no longer a reason for fear: "[Q]uite the contrary, death suddenly seemed a simple way out of all my troubles, a solution to the problem of my miserable existence, my constant fear." (p. 71)

When the war was over in 1945, Genya joined a kibbutz (a communal group) in Poland. "We found comrades who had shared our suffering. Our mutual friendships helped us to recover and to open a new chapter in our lives." (p. 112) But persecution was not over after the war. Hatred of Jews continued and there were several reports of murders committed by Ukrainians.

After an odyssey of wandering throughout Europe, Genya finally escaped to Israel in 1947 with the help of the Bricha (an illegal "escape-organization" that helped Displaced Persons to get to Israel).

After all she had suffered, Genya still was the human being she used to be before it all started. The Nazis couldn’t take away her will to live and the intense feelings she had for everything related to that drive. On the other hand, her life was never the same again. The nightmares about her family stayed throughout her life. Genya died in Israel in 1999.

For me, reading Genya was a very impressive experience. It made me aware, once more, that there is more to know about the Holocaust than just abstract numbers. Rather, there were hundreds of thousands of unique experiences. Genya gives the reader an insight into Jewish family structure, and how, not only one social unit, but a whole world, was destroyed. The book also shows that the Holocaust is not only connected to Germany as such; the Holocaust would not have been possible without the help of such people as those Ukrainians who participated in the almost total extermination of the European Jews.

Andreas Feuerstein
Austrian Gedenkdienst Intern