To Life

by Ruth Minsky Sender, Jim Coon (Illustrator)

Overview

"WE ARE FREE!"
When Russian soldiers liberate Grafenort, the Nazi labor camp where she is a prisoner, nineteen-year-old Riva discovers that liberation doesn't mean the end of her hardship and suffering.
Cold and starving, threatened with rape by the same Russian soldiers who were her saviors, Riva makes her way to her old home in Poland, searching like so many others for family who may have survived. Strengthened by her mother's credo, as long as there is life, there is hope, and by the promise of a new love and a new life, Riva endures the long years of waiting for real freedom and a real home.
Picking up where her acclaimed memoir The Cage leaves off, Ruth Minsky Sender has written another inspirational document of the power of hope and love over unspeakable cruelty.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781481442343
Publisher:	Simon Pulse
Publication date:	01/13/2015
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	401,936
File size:	507 KB
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Ruth Minsky Sender was a teacher of Jewish culture and history, specializing in the Holocaust. She lives with her husband in Commack, New York. She is the mother of three grown sons and a daughter, and has several grandchildren. The Cage was her first book; she is also the author of To Life, and The Holocaust Lady.

Editorial Reviews

This sequel to The Cage follows the author after her liberation from a Nazi concentration camp. Despite flaws with the pacing, PW said, "As testament to the human spirit, this memoir shines." Ages 12-up. (Mar.) n Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Holocaust survivors faced an unexpected challenge after liberation from the concentration camps. They found themselves both homeless and stateless. In this beautiful sequel to Sender's extraordinary memoir, The Cage, readers learn how nineteen-year-old Riva traveled back to Lodz, Poland only to find no traces of her younger brothers or mother. Like other survivors, Riva's home has been taken over by Poles and she must sleep in temporary shelters. These shelters also serve as message centers as survivors post letters to the loved ones they hope to find. Riva meets another young survivor named Moniek. They marry and travel to a displaced persons camp in Germany where they begin a five-year wait for visas to America. During this time, Riva is fortunately reunited with three older siblings who escaped to Russia before the war. She also gives birth to two healthy children. Without bitterness or sentimentality, Sender describes what it was like for Holocaust survivors to rebuild their lives in a world that refused to welcome them. The refrain from The Cage, "while there is life, there is hope" takes on an even deeper meaning in this poignant memoir. 2000 (orig. 1988), Aladdin Paperbacks, Ages 12 up, $4.99. Reviewer: Jackie Hechtkopf

Children's Literature - Children's Literature