Sample Sources
The sources below are those contained in our three curated collections—covering themes of Passover, Gender Roles, and Holocaust Resistance. They represent a fraction of the thousands of sources that will be available when the full site launches in 2024.
Letter to Anka
19 August 1943
Today, dear Anka, is the anniversary of your Golgotha, tomorrow the anniversary of your death. A year has passed since I last saw you. You see, Anka, I do not believe in God and never…
As a Driven Leaf
Toward the end of the first century, in the spring of the last year of the reign of the Emperor Vespasian, two entries were made in the Roman archives of the district of Galilee. The first…
Diamonds
The refugees sat with their spoons halfway to their mouths, apparently listening with great seriousness, and trying with all their might not to burst into gales of laughter. The long, skinny lady left…
The Month of Rescue
It is for us, for all of us together,
To assist, to liberate, to rescue brothers,
From capture, from hunger and slaughter—
Rescue them from the vile Nazi oppressor.
Every man and woman whose soul…
In Polish Lands
Trees cry for rain
And mountains for air.
So cry my eyes
For you, dear Mother;
So cry my eyes
For you, dear Mother.
I turn and I ask what will become of me.
In Polish lands
I am destined to die.
…
1948. A Soldier’s Tale: The Bloody Road to Jerusalem
At five o’clock in the morning our commanders stormed into the dormitories to wake us. No morning gymnastics. We are in a high state of alert. Our comrades who were on night duty report…
Aunt Joya
On rare occasions Aunt Joya di Pinso would come over, and whenever she came, the house would be full of good spirits. The minute she set foot on our threshold, pausing for a moment, as was…
The Pile
The next day Marcel Schwartz registered at the labor exchange. [ . . . ]
Ten days later he heard clearly and explicitly: Marcel Schwartz! With trembling hands, he took his work notice, went home to…
Early in the Summer of 1970
I believe I ought to go over the moment when I learned of his death once more.
A summer morning, the sky wide, June, last days of the school year. I rise late, faintly stunned, straight into the…
Sprinkler Hora
A gush of joy in the pipe,
The pipes, the arteries of the Negev,
This is the course of the song,
From the faucet to the clod
The water of the depths ascends.
A pump means bread!
Negev, Negev, what’s…
The Jews of the Diaspora, or the Minority Vocation
Certainly, the collective will of diaspora Jews is assured neither of success nor of perennial life. It is situated in history, subject to the erosion and constraints of history, equally conditioned…
The Last of the Just
[ . . . ] It seemed to him that an eternal silence was closing down upon the Jewish breed marching to slaughter—that no heir, no memory would supervene to prolong the silent parade of victims, no…