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The First and Final Nightmare of Sonia Reich
by
Howard Reich
On the evening of February 15, 2001, Sonia Reich, Howard Reich's mother, packed some clothes into two brown shopping bags, put on her gray winter coat, locked the door to her home in Skokie, Illinois and fled. Someone was trying to kill her, "to put a bullet in my head," Sonia told anyone who would listen. Polish and Jewish, Sonia Reich had survived the Holocaust by stayin...more
Hardcover, 224 pages
Published
June 13th 2006
by PublicAffairs
(first published June 12th 2006)
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This must have been an incredibly difficult book for the author to write, but it is extremely compelling - I read it straight through in one day.
Reich points out that American awareness of the Holocaust tends to be very focused on the concentration camps, but there were many other Jews in Europe who died (or survived) through equally horrendous circumstances who were victims in other ways, in mass killings such as at Babi Yar. This is the story, as best as he was able to piece together, of his m...more
Reich points out that American awareness of the Holocaust tends to be very focused on the concentration camps, but there were many other Jews in Europe who died (or survived) through equally horrendous circumstances who were victims in other ways, in mass killings such as at Babi Yar. This is the story, as best as he was able to piece together, of his m...more
This book is haunting. Sonia's story is heartbreaking but her son's agony with having to pick up the pieces is equally horrifying.
I never fully realized that the murders of millions of Jews during the Holocaust was really only half of the horror. What the survivors and people of Eastern Europe saw and experienced ruined their lives.
A quick and haunting read about the author's mother's late onset PTSD, sixty years after having survived the Holocaust.
Haunting and bittersweet tribute to a brave woman facing down her demons and past. Read and remember.
A holocaust survivor deals with post-traumatic stress - almost 50 years after she escaped Nazi Germany.
Howard Reich grew up thinking that everyone's mother sat up all night at the kitchen table sipping coffee, because that's what his did. The severe effects of her post-traumatic stress didn't show up until her old age, prompting him to find out about her past as a holocaust survivor. Warning: there are some very disturbing things in the second half of this book, as he uncovers some holocaust history of his family members.
wow! amazing. I just finished and am speachless.
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I met Howard when we were both speaking on a panel at the Midwest Literary Festival. A great man with a greater story. It started as a story in the Chicago Tribune, and then morphed into a book and now a documentary film. A truly worthy read.
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