An Estate of Memory

by Ilona Karmel, Ruth K. Angress (Afterword)

An Estate of Memory is a spiritual novel of growth and regeneration, even in the midst of brutality and death, that recreates in precise detail the daily lives of Jewish women in a Nazi concentration camp in Poland. The taste and feel of the days and seasons, of the varieties of work, are palpable, and the pre-camp memories of the prisoners braid the narrative brilliantly. The novel testifies to survival through cooperation, as it focuses on four women who join together at first to improve their own lives, and ultimately to save the life of a baby. As Adrienne Rich notes, An Estate of Memory is “a woman’s eye view of living beyond the point where life is supposed to have meaning.”

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Holocaust, Literature

464 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1986

Reviews

[Robin]

What a beautiful and apt title for such a book—one that takes you, if you'll go, through each character's increasingly abstract, darkly dreamlike mind states as compromises are made in their work camp. This would be well read alongside Man’s Search for Meaning.

[Anna Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book, randomly picked up at a book sale, but which has been seared into my brain forever.

The author was a camp survivor in WW2, and her writing is astonishing

A group of women who struggle every day, yet save a baby when there is a pregnancy, even when they can't save themselves.

Astounding book.

[Tom Leland · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don't know what it was about this book--very rare I don't finish any book, even tough reads. I just couldn't follow the writing...always confused--who is feeling what? Where are they? Is this actual or imagined? Some beautiful metaphors, and the story, of women working in Nazi camps, is from a first-hand witness. Considered an important feminist work as well, which I understand...but at page 300 or so I began skimming quickly to the end.
Ilona Karmel went on to head up creative writing at MIT, which surprises me...since her obviously important story was, I felt, laid out in very confusing fashion. And Elizabeth Janeway called this a "very good book", and compared Karmel to Solzhenitsyn. Well, what do I know. Maybe it's just me.

[Jared Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is holocaust literature and this telling is well done and based on experience, though this is a fictional rendering. Worth the read. Can be tough to read at times, purely from what the characters go through.

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

An important book, I agree, from someone who knew the camps from the inside, but I found it rambling and too long, and lost interest as I went along. Such a shame, and it deserves a wider readership.

[Luanne Castle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Realistic and devastating story of living in a Nazi labor camp. A must read. If you can handle it.

[Carrie]

Holocaust studies