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Product Identifiers

PublisherRandom House Publishing Group

ISBN-100385336047

ISBN-139780385336048

eBay Product ID (ePID)30520971

Product Key Features

Book TitleEster and Ruzya : How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler's War and Stalin's Peace

Number of Pages384 Pages

LanguageEnglish

TopicWomen, Sociology / General, General, Jewish

Publication Year2004

IllustratorYes

GenreSocial Science, Biography & Autobiography, History

AuthorMasha Gessen

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height1 in

Item Weight21.7 Oz

Item Length9.2 in

Item Width6.2 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN2004-045472

Dewey Edition22

ReviewsA loving memoir of two grandmothers that offers a penetrating look at two killer regimes. Masha Gessen's wonderful book portrays human beings trying to live justly when there is virtually no way to do so." ---William Taubman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author ofKhrushchev: The Man and His Era "This blend of historical depth with personal experience is a powerful mix, illuminating how family and friendship can grow in even the darkest eras." --Publishers Weekly "A journalist's memoir of her grandmothers also paints an eloquent portrait of two totalitarian powers, the havoc they wrought, and the countless burdens they imposed on ordinary families.... A masterful chronicle of dark and dangerous years, and a distinguished addition to the history of totalitarianism." --Kirkus Reviews "Reviewers sometimes call a work of nonfiction 'as exciting as a novel,' but that would be an understatement applied to this extraordinary family memoir....Ester and Ruzyawill remind you how much life, history and emotional and moral complexity the genre can convey in the hands of a wonderful writer." --New York Times Book Review From the Hardcover edition.

Dewey Decimal947.084/092/39240438

SynopsisIn the 1930s, as waves of war and persecution were crashing over Europe, two young Jewish women began separate journeys of survival. One, a Polish-born woman from Bialystok, where virtually the entire Jewish community would soon be sent to the ghetto and from there to Hitler's concentration camps, was determined not only to live but to live with pride and defiance. The other, a Russian-born intellectual and introvert, would eventually become a high-level censor under Stalin's regime. At war's end, both women found themselves in Moscow, where informers lurked on every corner and anti-Semitism reigned. It was there that Ester and Ruzya would first cross paths, there that they became the closest of friends and learned to trust each other with their lives. In this deeply moving family memoir, journalist Masha Gessen tells the story of her two beloved grandmothers: Ester, the quicksilver rebel who continually battled the forces of tyranny; Ruzya, a single mother who joined the Communist Party under duress and made the compromises the regime exacted of all its citizens. Both lost their first loves in the war. Both suffered unhappy unions. Both were gifted linguists who made their living as translators. And both had children-Ester a boy, and Ruzya a girl-who would grow up, fall in love, and have two children of their own: Masha and her younger brother. With grace, candor, and meticulous research, Gessen peels back the layers of secrecy surrounding her grandmothers' lives. As she follows them through this remarkable period in history-from the Stalin purges to the Holocaust, from the rise of Zionism to the fall of communism-she describes how each of her grandmothers, and before them her great-grandfather, tried to navigate a dangerous line between conscience and compromise. Ester and Ruzya is a spellbinding work of storytelling, filled with political intrigue and passionate emotion, acts of courage and acts of betrayal. At once an intimate family chronicle and a fascinating historical tale, it interweaves the stories of two women with a brilliant vision of Russian history. The result is a memoir that reads like a novel-and an extraordinary testament to the bonds of family and the power of hope, love, and endurance. From the Hardcover edition.

LC Classification NumberDS135.R95A119 2004