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During these challenging days of social distancing, we invite you to read something other than the news and to come together virtually to discuss books, writing, and telling Jewish stories.

Join the Jewish Women’s Archive for Esther Safran Foer's I Want You to Know We’re Still Here

 

Esther Safran Foer grew up in a home where the past was too ter­ri­ble to speak of. The child of par­ents who were each the sole sur­vivors of their respec­tive fam­i­lies, for Esther the Holo­caust loomed in the back­drop of dai­ly life, felt but nev­er dis­cussed. The result was a child­hood marked by painful silences and con­tin­ued tragedy. Even as she built a suc­cess­ful career, mar­ried, and raised three chil­dren, Esther always felt her­self searching. So when Esther’s moth­er casu­al­ly men­tions an aston­ish­ing rev­e­la­tion — that her father had a pre­vi­ous wife and daugh­ter, both killed in the Holo­caust — Esther resolves to find out who they were, and how her father sur­vived. Armed with only a black-and-white pho­to and a hand-drawn map, she trav­els to Ukraine, deter­mined to find the shtetl where her father hid dur­ing the war. What she finds reshapes her iden­ti­ty and gives her the oppor­tu­ni­ty to final­ly mourn. I Want You to Know We’re Still Here is the poignant and deeply mov­ing sto­ry not only of Esther’s jour­ney but of four gen­er­a­tions liv­ing in the shad­ow of the Holo­caust. They are four gen­er­a­tions of sur­vivors, sto­ry­tellers, and mem­o­ry keep­ers, deter­mined not just to keep the past alive but to imbue the present with life and more life.

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