Survival; or, How My Family Beat the Odds in 1940

We present here the first chapter from the memoirs-in-progress of the renowned scholar and author Ruth R. Wisse. Further installments will appear regularly over the next months.

Ruth Wisse’s books include The Modern Jewish Canon, A Little Love in Big Manhattan, If I Am Not for Myself, No Joke, and Jews and Power. A Hebrew edition of Jews and Power is about to be released by Toby Press in Israel.

It was not easy for a European Jew to beat the odds in the mid-20th century. When in my teens I began reading accounts of those who did, I wondered how I would have fared had I been in their place. Some who became known as “survivors” ascribed their endurance to qualities of mind and spirit; others denied that any special talent or action could explain it.