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Just One
by Esther Gerstenfeld Erman
Category: Mainstream
Description: Based on the lives of the author's grandmother, mother, and herself: From a village in Poland to the streets of America.... From the ashes of a family destroyed to the resurgence of life.... After a life filled with both great heights of happiness and bitter depths of tragedy, Estera Wolinsky perishes in a gas chamber at Treblinka. Of her many loved ones, only one daughter survives. Estera's soul cries out in pain and loss. But then her spirit, summoned back to Earth by her granddaughter's longing, begins a journey that will transform both her and the child. The growing child struggles to reconcile the conflicting cultures of her immigrant parents and American society. Only as she learns the full scope of her grandmother's life from her own mother's stories--preserving memories and linking the generations--does she find the strength to claim her own identity and move on to the future.
eBook Publisher: Zumaya Publications/Zumaya Publications, 2003 USA
eBookwise Release Date: March 2003
 
2 Reader Ratings:
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Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [400 KB]
Words: 99190
Reading time: 283-396 min.
Momma went on: "Bread from my brother Mendel. Black and stiff with mold, how could it seem so precious? But I had already eaten rotted potato peels. I'd drunk the water used to cool engines. "I motioned to Sesha to come over, and I pulled the rag open just enough so that she could see there was a bread. Her eyes widened. You understand--we were so hungry, so hungry. I gestured to her that we should whisper. We looked at each other and, holding hands, we said the blessing over bread. And then we ate Mendel's bread." Now Momma was sobbing again. "The next day I was transferred to another part of Auschwitz," she said slowly. "I never saw Mendel, and I never heard from him again." "Do you know what happened to him?" I asked, fighting my own tears. She shook her head, blew her nose, and wiped her eyes. And then Momma went to the oven and took out two large, beautiful, golden brown loaves of challah. Bubbe's spirit was tapping the challahs alongside Momma. But I knew Momma couldn't see her. Bubbe was smiling at the challahs. She said, "Yes, little one, these are just like mine. She remembered well." I wished I could tell Momma. I wished she knew that her mother was happy with her challahs. But she wouldn't have believed me. "Next time you will learn from her," Bubbe said. "It is what we have to give each other. It is how you will keep us with you."
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