Aftermath

“Annette Libeskind Berkovits’ Aftermath is a gorgeous bouquet of a book, chronicling her family's journey from Soviet Kyrgyzstan to Poland in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust, their subsequent sojourn in Israel and, finally, their gamble on building a new life for themselves in the United States. It is both a touching coming-of-age memoir and an inspirational immigrant story, an absolute pleasure to read.”

—Andrew Nagorski; an award-winning author and journalist who spent more than three decades as a foreign correspondent and editor for Newsweek. Former Vice President and director of public policy for the East-West Institute, an international affairs think tank. Author of Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power, 2012; The Nazi Hunters, 2016; and 1941: The Year Germany Lost the War

“Aftermath is a delightful memoir that draws you in with its lively, child’s-eye perspective. Spanning three continents, the book vividly depicts the constrictions of post-war Poland, the vibrant energy and material rigors of the young state of Israel, and the expansiveness of the post-war American dream. Berkovits is sensitive to what it feels like to carry the burdens of history on the slim shoulders of childhood; to the dislocation and identity confusion of the immigrant experience; and to the ways in which a child absorbs parental trauma. Most of all, the book is a joyful celebration of the adaptability and resilience of childhood.”

—Rabbi Rena Blumenthal, psychologist in New York City and Jerusalem; author of The Book of Israela; Former Assistant Director of the Office of Religious & Spiritual Life and Advisor to Jewish Students at Vassar College and Board member of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association

“In her charming and inspiring memoir, Annette Libeskind Berkovits, manages to combine terror, deprivation, desperation, hope, romance, and humor into an artful story of wandering, love, loss, and ultimately triumph. Berkovits’ personal journey from Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, to Poland, to Kibbutz Gvat, then Tel Aviv and finally New York, mirrors the awesome and awful saga of 20th century Jews. Berkovits draws the reader deeply into her sad, wounded, but loving family, even as she presents the full range of the modern Jewish experience from tragic loss to redemption and healing.”

—Rabbi Phil Graubart, Judaica Director at the San Diego Jewish Academy and author of ten books, the latest being Women and God.

“Aftermath is an enthralling coming-of-age memoir recounting the hardships and challenges facing a young girl's family in the years following the Holocaust. Searching for a place to call home, they move from a valley in Kyrgyzstan to the streets of war-torn Poland and then to a kibbutz in Israel, a land of dazzling contrasts. The children quickly learn Hebrew and relax into the communal lifestyle of the kibbutz, but life is not easy for the parents. The mother, a talented seamstress, has little interest in farming and, more importantly, the father, not speaking Hebrew, cannot find a job in Israel. What to do? Go to America, 'the Golden Land.' With characters you genuinely care about, exotic locales, and edge-of-your-seat tension, Aftermath is the best memoir I've read in years.”

—Barbara Donsky, International Best-Selling author of Missing Mother and Veronica's Grave: A Daughter's Memoir

“Aftermath by Annette Libeskind Berkovits is one of those necessary books that provides a rare account of the lives of Holocaust survivors after the war. Most survivors did not repatriate, but the Libeskind family did for some post war years. It poignantly depicts how this Jewish family negotiated the residual antisemitism in Poland as it tried to re-establish itself. An impossible feat, the family then followed the heart-rending nomadic path of so many survivors, moving from place to place until almost out of exhaustion, they settled in the U.S.”

—Ellen G. Friedman, PhD, Professor of English and Women’s & Gender Studies, The College of New Jersey; Coordinator of the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Program; author of The Seven, a Family Holocaust Story

“Aftermath is the remarkable memoir of two resourceful children and their parents as they emerge from the losses of the Holocaust. In cinematic, unsentimental language, Berkovits places us at the scenes of the crimes. But she also depicts personal victories, such as her classroom walkout to protest being shamed in school during Christian prayers in Poland or getting into one of the most selective public high schools in America without taking the required entrance exam. Aftermath is both a personal and universal immigrant survival story of striving for the American Dream. Before feminism was a glimmer in Gloria Steinem’s eye, there were girls and women like Berkovits and her mother. Gritty, intelligent, iron-willed survivors who, against all odds, made the best of the worst possible situations, stitching together a new American life.”

—Alan Sharavsky; Author of Boarding School Bastard, A Memoir: Life in an Orphanage for Fatherless Boys