Milton Avery
Charles Burchfield
Alexander Calder
Joseph Cornell
Jean Dubuffet
Philip Guston
Lester Johnson
Alex Katz
Henri Matisse
Joan Miro
Pablo Picasso
Mark di Suvero
Bob Thompson
Tom Wesselmann

On The Bookshelf

Yaffa Eliachs "There Once Was A World:
A 900-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok"
rebuilds the identity of a vanished people.

0

ne of the most striking exhibits
in the U.S. Holocaust Memor-
ial Museum in Washington, ,
D.C., is the three-story tower
of photographs taken in Eishyshok, doc-
umenting that shtetl's Jewish life before it
was destroyed by the Nazis.
Viewers are encircled
by 1,600 photographs
collected by Dr. Yaffa
Eliach, a professor at
Brooklyn College who
was born in Eishyshok.
Now, Dr. Eliach has
published a book that
links together the
moments captured in
the photographs, pre-
senting a full and tex-
tured description of the
once vital community.

The gallery is actively purchasing
and
prints
by the above mentioned artists
paintings, sculpture,
Call to set up an appointment.

David Klein Gallery

163 TOWNSEND BIRMINGHAM MI 48009

TELEPHONE 248.433.3700 FAX 248.433.3702

HOURS: MONDAY THROUGH SATURDAY I 1 - 5:30

Visit our online catalogue at www.dkgallery.com

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1998

100 Detroit Jewish News

the shtetl, 40 miles from Vilna,
belonged to Poland in the years
between the world wars; Jews lived in
the market town since the 11th century.
Before the Holocaust, the Jewish
population of Eishyshok was 3,500.
Most of the Jews were massacred in
1941. Eliach and her immediate family
escaped and were hidden by Christians.
After the town was liberated by the

SANDEE BRAWARSKY
Special to The Jewish News

9'

Once There Was A
World: A 900-Year
Chronicle of the Shtetl
of Eishyshok (Little,
Brown and Co.; $40
until Dec. 31/$50
thereafter) was a final-
ist for this year's
National Book Award
in Non-Fiction. A mas-
sive project spanning
826 pages that took
more than 17 years to
The author's father, Moshe Sonenson, holding his
complete, the book is
l'a a in June 1941.
daughter
impressive in its layers of
research and details, and
Russians in 1944, Eliach, her family
the deep underlying passions of the
and the other surviving Jews returned
author, a pioneering scholar in Holo-
to Eishyshok; her mother and baby
caust studies and daughter of one of
brOther were killed in front of her by a
the founding families of Eishyshok.
band of uniformed Poles. Her father,
WETA, a PBS station in Washing-
who had been a leader of the town,
ton D.C., is producing a television
was arrested and sent to Siberia on
documentary based on the book and
trumped-up charges.
exhibit. In September 1997, Eliach,
In 1946, the author \vent to Israel
along with her family, a film crew and
with an aunt and uncle; ten years later
about 40 others with ties to Eishvshok,
her father, after his release from
returned to the shred for 10 days. The
prison, followed.
program will air next year.
One of Dr. Eliach's Goals, she says,
Contemporary Eishyshok is a town
is
to
correct the stereotypical views
without Jews. Now part of Lithuania,
that many hold of shtetl life. For Dr.
Eliach, the images in the stories of
Sandee Brawarsky is a freelance writer
based in Neu , }'D. rk.

'