Invisible Jews – Surviving the Holocaust in Poland

Eddie Bielawski was born in the town of Wegrow in Poland in mid-1938. Not a propitious time and place for a Jewish child to be born. As a young child, he sees the Nazi army marching toward Russia. Day and night they marched – soldiers, trucks, tanks, and more soldiers, in a never-ending line – an invincible force. Eddie heard his father tell his mother, “Who is going to stop them?”

One night, his father had a dream. In this dream, he saw what he had to do: where to build the bunker, how to build it, and even its dimensions. It took him three weeks to finish the job. When he was done, he took his family into the shed and asked them if they could find the trap door. When they could not, he was satisfied. This would be their Noah’s Ark, saving them from the initial deluge.

For three long years, starting in 1941 when the Nazis started the deportations and mass killings, Eddie and his family hid in secret bunkers that were dug in fields, under sheds, or constructed in barn lofts. It seemed that the only way a Jew could survive in wartime Poland was to become invisible. So they became invisible Jews.

“Inspiring to read of their resilience, ingenuity, and courage in overcoming almost unbearable circumstances. I highly recommend this great read!” (Cathie Johnson)

“If you read Anne Frank, then read this! So amazing and inspiring.” (Virginia Cummings)
©2017 Eddie Bielawski (P)2017 Eddie Bielawski

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Neighbors

  • The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland
  • Autor: Jan T. Gross
  • Sprecher: Rory Barnett
  • Spieldauer: 3 Std. und 22 Min.
  • Ungekürztes Hörbuch
  • Erscheinungsdatum: 29.05.2018
  • Sprache: Englisch
  • Anbieter: Tantor Audio

 
One summer day in 1941, half of the Polish town of Jedwabne murdered the other half, 1,600 men, women, and children, all but seven of the town’s Jews. Neighbors tells their story.

This is a shocking, brutal story that has never before been told. It is the most important study of Polish-Jewish relations to be published in decades and should become a classic of Holocaust literature. Jan Gross pieces together eyewitness accounts and other evidence into an engulfing reconstruction of the horrific July day remembered well by locals but forgotten by history. His investigation reads like a detective story, and its unfolding yields wider truths about Jewish-Polish relations, the Holocaust, and human responses to occupation and totalitarianism. It is a story of surprises: The newly occupying German army did not compel the massacre, and Jedwabne’s Jews and Christians had previously enjoyed cordial relations.

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