Quest for Eternal Sunshine

March 1, 2020

Rubin, born into an observant Jewish family in Poland in 1924, experienced a childhood rife with anti-Semitism and years of torturous labor at the hands of the Nazis. When he immigrated to the United States in 1946, he had experienced more than a lifetime's worth of pain and loss. Ever resilient, he created a successful business and a happy family, embarking on the undertaking of healing his psychological wounds. This memoir, posthumously edited by daughter Goodman (cofounder, Earthbound Farm), documents both his physical journey from Poland and Nazi concentration camps to America, and his emotional one from fear and depression to peace. Rubin applied his remarkable creative aptitude and used techniques of affirmation and visualization to retrain his mind toward happiness. He explains his thought processes clearly in brief chapters. Examples of his poems, affirmations, and visualizations illustrate the practices that helped him live a life of joy. VERDICT This heartfelt account of a remarkable life will interest anyone who has suffered trauma or who is overcoming difficulties, as well as those interested in Holocaust survivor biographies.--Laurie Unger Skinner, Highland Park P.L., IL

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

A Holocaust survivor's memoir recounts his attempts to free himself from haunting grief. Rubin (I Am Small, I Am Big, 1995, etc.) was born into a large Jewish family in Jaworzno, a small and "somber town" in Poland, in 1924. He experienced humiliation and isolation due to the prevailing anti-Semitism of his time and place; due to his dyslexia, school was "torture," and scholastic success proved elusive. His academic failure, particularly when it came to his Judaic studies, provoked his father's unrelenting disapproval. The situation in Jaworzno drastically worsened after Hitler came to power, and when, in 1939, Germany invaded Poland, the town was among the first to be occupied. The author was forced to work in a coal mine before he was sent, in 1942, to a concentration camp at the age of 17. He became a self-described "survival machine" and made it through the ordeal, but many members of his family didn't, and he and his surviving sister, Bronia, were crushed by guilt and despair. "Neither of us knew how to move on. We had nothing to look forward to, just anguish and devastation to run away from. Although we'd survived, living without a home or family in a world full of unfathomable cruelty did not feel at all like a triumph." Rubin's achingly poignant recollection is lovingly edited by his co-author daughter, Goodman (Straight From the Earth, 2014, etc.), who supplements his writing with her own research, including interviews with the family. Rubin vividly chronicles his heroic effort "to break free from the psychological prison I'd lived in since I was a child in a little town in Poland" and find some measure of peace, and even joy. His prose is as lucid as it is candidly confessional, and his refusal to simply succumb to self-pity is inspiring. There is, of course, no shortage of Holocaust memoirs, and readers will find that this one covers familiar ground. However, the author travels this territory with grace and intelligence, making his contribution both moving and edifying. A heartbreaking story of survival and emotional resilience.

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