A Jew in the Woods -
Pages from a Diary by Berl Kagan (Kahn) is a unique Holocaust account as
the author wrote this journal between the sentences of a book, while in hiding in the Lithuanian countryside. Kagan explains the hardships he and his
comrades suffer hiding in the barn of a friendly (and brave) Lithuanian
peasant. Later, Kagan must live in the woods and brush outside the farm.
Against the odds, he and his wife survive the Shoah. Reading his account, it is difficult to imagine
the privation, the exposure to the winter and heat, the insects and the fear of
discovery. Kagan experiences this dissonance too,
for the diary ends with an explanation: after twelve years, he reads the
account again. He no longer imagines
having lived through his experiences; it is a testimony to human
durability, he explains. People will do what they
need to survive.
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