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Tears Over Russia: A Search for Family and the Legacy of Ukraine's Pogroms
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About This Book
A sweeping saga of a Jewish family and community fighting for survival against the ravages of history. Set between events depicted in Fiddler on the Roof and Schindler's List , Lisa Brahin's Tears over Russia brings to life a piece of Jewish history that has never before been told . Between 1917 and 1921, twenty years before the Holocaust began, an estimated 100,000 to 250,000 Jews were murdered in anti-Jewish pogroms across Ukraine. Lisa grew up transfixed by her grandmother Channa's stories about her family being forced to flee their hometown of Stavishche, as armies and bandit groups raided village after village, killing Jewish residents. Channa described a perilous three-year journey through Russia and Romania, led at first by a gallant American who had snuck into Ukraine to save his immediate family and ended up leading an exodus of nearly eighty to safety. With almost no published sources to validate her grandmother's tales, Lisa embarked on her incredible journey to tell Channa's story, forging connections with archivists around the world to find elusive documents to fill in the gaps of what happened in Stavishche. She also tapped into connections closer to home, gathering testimonies from her grandmother's relatives, childhood friends and neighbors. The result is a moving historical family narrative that speaks to universal human themes—the resilience and hope of ordinary people surviving the ravages of history and human cruelty. With the growing passage of time, it is unlikely that we will see another family saga emerge so richly detailing this forgotten time period. Tears Over Russia eloquently proves that true life is sometimes more compelling than fiction.
Reviews
"Genealogist Brahin debuts with an evocative and distressing account of her grandmother's experiences during the wave of anti-Jewish pogroms that swept across Russia and Ukraine in the early 20th century...Estimating that as many as 250,000 Jews were killed between 1917 and 1921, Brahin details horrific crimes committed by gangs of 'vicious peasants' and soldiers of the Russian White Army and Ukrainian nationalist forces opposed to the Bolsheviks...Her grandmother Channa, who was born in 1912, was forced to flee her home in Stavishche, a village near Kyiv, and hide with her family in the forest and in the dark crawl spaces of friends' homes...Brahin adds context to Channa's story with reports from Yiddish newspapers and diligent archival and genealogical research and paints vivid scenes of anguish and resilience...This is a vital personal record of Ukraine's turbulent past."
"With curiosity spurred by her grandmother's stories, genealogist Brahin spent years reconstructing an overlooked historical period that pre-dates the Holocaust but is in many ways a taste of the bitter sorrows to come...The sweeping reconstruction of this family story focuses primarily on Stavyshche, a poor Ukrainian village outside Kyiv, exposing nascent Eastern European antisemitism amidst the chaotic geo-political changes in early 20th century Russia and Ukraine which resulted in nearly 200,000 Jewish dead and massive emigration to America...The bibliography alone makes this a valuable resource...This family history of Kyiv is especially potent in this season of Russian-Ukrainian strife, ironically with a Ukrainian Jew now at the helm...Timely and essential reading."
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