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On The Bookshelf
THE ONE & ONLY
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A Son's Memoir
of West Bloomfield
The story of his father's harrowing journey
through the Holocaust has consumed
Michael Skakun's life.
When he overhears one worker voice
skepticism about his borrowed back-
ground, he realizes he must leave. He
then decides to apply to join the SS, and
y father was a chameleon
sees service with the Nazi troops as a
par excellence," author
way to get close to the Russian border
Michael Skakun says of
— and then cross over.
Joseph Skakun, who sur-
Accepted into the SS, he is never
vived the Holocaust by posing as a
mobilized: He is liberated before he has
Polish Catholic, then a Muslim, working
to wear a Nazi uniform.
as a farmhand in
Although he never
Germany and eventual-
served with the SS, the
ly joining the Nazi SS
idea of it raised tremen-
in order to save his life.
dous moral issues for
On Burning Ground:
Joseph at the time, and
A Son's Memoir (St.
for him and his son to
Martin's Press; $23.95)
wrestle with for many
is Michael Skakun's
years after.
retelling of his father's
A writer and transla-
Holocaust journey. For
tor who lives on
the younger Skakun,
Manhattan's Upper
this book has been in
West Side, Michael
the making since he
Skakun points out that
was a child. "This story
his father's cunning is
is as close to me as my
prefigured in their sur-
own life," he says in an
name which, in
interview.
Russian, means "to
Born in Jaffa, Israel,
jump, to spring, a word
Michael, now 42, and
conveying something of
his family moved to
the nimble horseman-
New York when he was "Even at a time when so many
4. He has no siblings,
personal stories of the Holocaust ship of the Cossack and
the daring of the fear-
and he and his parents
have been told, the reader is
spent every Shabbat
reminded that every story is sin- less equestrian."
To write the book,
afternoon together as a gular, the details unforgettable."
Skakun, who had been
threesome, with his
an assistant to noted lit-
father sharing details of his experience
erary critic Alfred Kazin, researched the
dodging the Nazis.
history of the region. He has never been
In 1941, Joseph Skakun was a 20-
to Poland, but describes it as "a world I
year old yeshiva student, a coddled only
had
inhabited in my imagination."
child of his widowed mother, in their
As in his conversation, he laces the
town of Novogrudek, Poland (now
narrative with literary references, quot-
Byelorussia). "He was the least likely of
ing Polish poets like Adam Mickiewicz,
survivors," Michael says.
native son of Novogrudek who was con-
After a shooting and mass burial of
sidered Poland's Shakespeare, and others.
most of the town's Jews, Joseph Skakun
As a memoir, the book is unusual in
escapes and makes his way to Vilna. The
format, as the first person "I" referring
accounts of his maneuvering sound as
to the author appears only in the pro-
though he was able to turn his talmudic
logue, never again in the book. Michael
training into street-wise brilliance.
explains that he wanted the narrator "to
For three years, the blonde, blue-eyed
be as transparent as possible."
young man improvises his identity, at
Michael worked on On Burning
one point appropriating the birth certifi-
Ground for more than a decade. The
cate of a Polish Tatar and taking on his
story, he says, "outlives any telling.
identity in order to enter the German
Purring it in a book doesn't give it clo-
foreign labor program. Working on a
sure. We cannot close that experience.
farm in Berlin, he carefully guards his
We can claim it, make it our own.
secret among the other workers.
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