Clara’s War is an autobiographical book written by Clara Kramer together with Stephen Glantz. It talks about the story of Clara and her Jewish family, hiding in a homemade underground bunker during WWII to escape the Nazi persecutions.
Life before the war
Before the war, Clara’s family (the Schwarzs) was living in Zolkiew (now Zhovkva), a small Polish village about 40 km from Lvov. Her family was well known and respected, as her father owned a vegetable oil factory.
In Zolkiew there was quite a big Jewish community – about 5,000 people, accounting for almost half of the town’s population. At the time, Zolwiek was considered an “oasis” of tolerance toward the Jews, virtually free from the anti-Semitic feelings so common in the rest of Eastern Europe. Things, however, changed dramatically with the beginning of the conflict.
The war
Zolkiew was firstly invaded by the Russians. Life started to get more difficult: People opposing the Communist regime started to be deported to Siberia; the episodes of intolerance against the Jews increased.
However, the situation got much worse when the Germans took over the town from the Russians. Discrimination against and persecution and killing of the Jews became a regular thing; Jewish people in Zolkiew experienced first hand the Nazi ideology and the various stages of the “final solution.”
Clara’s family and two more families (the Melmans and the Patronaschs) were not deported, as the men were forced to work in the oil factory. Although Clara’s father did not own the factory anymore, he and his two friends were the only people capable of running it. They were, therefore, considered useful by the Nazi regime and spared. This gave the families the opportunity to have some time to look for a place to hide.
Going into hiding
At the end of 1942, the three families (Schwarz, Melman and Patronasch) went into hiding with the help of Julia and Valentine Beck; they knew the Becks as Julia worked for the Schwarzs as a cleaner. The Becks were Volksdeutsch (ethnic Germans). Valentine had a terrible reputation: lazy, drunken and, worst of all, a friend of the SS and an anti-Semite.
Despite this, he and Julia offered their help to the three Jewish families, risking their lives to protect them. They built a bunker under their house, where Clara and her companions spent 18 months.
They were joined by another family, the Steckels; they were 19 people in total. Eighteen of them survived and made it to the liberation of Zolkiew by the Soviet Army.
Life in the bunker
Most of the book describes the life of the families in the bunker. They had very little light, air or space; despite this, they never gave up and kept on resisting day by day.
Their routine was always affected by the events taking place outside. The fact that they had no control over this made them tense and resigned to their fate at the same time.
During their hiding, they could not ignore what was happening outside their bunker. Often they heard news of friends or family members dying. They really felt their community was becoming smaller and smaller due to the extermination.
This feeling became even more obvious at the end of the war, when they were finally freed. They realized how few people survived the war; the destruction of the synagogue and of the Jewish cemetery of the village were emblematic images of the fate of the Jews of Zolkiew.
Clara’s diary
During her period in the bunker, Clara wrote a diary about their life in hiding. She was encouraged to do so by her mother and by Valentine Beck. The idea was that, if they did not survive the war, there would be a written testimony of what happened there.
Clara’s War is partly based on the diary. Some parts are also reproduced in the book. The actual diary was subsequently given as a present to the Washington Holocaust Museum.
Remarkable testimony
Clara’s war in a poignant account of WWII and the Holocaust, probably one of the best books written on this subject. One of the most moving elements present in her testimony is the sadness and disbelief felt by Jews when betrayed by people they considered friends.
In the book there are many examples of this; the most powerful one regards a girl reported to the Nazis by some previous classmates, with whom she used to go ice-skating. Episodes like this really shock the reader and make them appreciate the human tragedies that the survivors experienced.
True courage
In the book, some characters show what Clara calls “true courage”: Jewish people who died without betraying their family, or people like the Becks who risked everything to help the Jews.
Particularly in the case of the Becks, for Clara it is extremely important that everybody knows how good they were and how much they did and risked to save them. This message is repeated many times throughout the book – the courage of the Becks and of the others like them must not be forgotten.
Compelling reading
Clara’s War deserves to be read not only for its content but also for its style: The book is very well written with a language that is simple and powerful at the same time. Stephen Glantz tells us Clara’s story in an intelligent and professional way, extremely well written for a co-authored autobiography.
Sources
- Clara Kramer: Clara’s War. ISBN-30: 0091924413. Ebury Press 2009.
Clara Piccirillo - Clara Piccirillo
Join the Conversation