Rising from the Abyss: An adult's struggle with her trauma as a child in the Holocaust

Sara was born in 1936 into a Jewish family in Poland, Europe. Her first memories are from the age of four or five, when she was left homeless and without her family, wandering the streets of the villages of Poland during the Second World War. Alone in the cruel world, subjected to the mean acts of evil people, disease, hunger, and degradation, she also found sparks of light humanity. A stranger found her and presented her as a Christian child to an orphanage in a convent. From there, she was adopted by a Christian couple, and was raised as their child until the age of 13.

This is a revealing autobiography, which moves the reader and carries him along on the journey. It sometimes reads like a thriller. The author couldn't tell her story for many years, until she managed to break her self-imposed silence to tell her life story. The story moves back and forth from her present reality, which seems calm, solid and successful, to her childhood traumas.

Her biological family, parents and brother, did not survive the Holocaust. Her extended family, which finally found her after the war, tried to return her to her Jewish origins and family, but she refused, and her adopted parents fought them in the Polish courts. The court supported her biological family, and she was brought to Israel to live with them.

This book will appeal to a wide audience because it is not only about a unique and individual story, but it also deals with universal dilemmas such as religious identity, loyalty, etc.

Sara has written her story, as well as her feelings, her thoughts, and her dreams, while constantly dealing with her scarred and bruised soul. Beyond her childhood story lie the adult questions and dilemmas of identity and borrowed identity, of religion and nationality, of loyalty to biological or adopted family, of keeping or revealing deep-seated secrets. Most of these dilemmas cannot be answered, and the author lives with them every day of her adult life.







To my husband Benny

To my children Orli, Ran, and Michal

And to all my grandchildren