May 2023 MBR The Holocaust Studies Shelf

The Holocaust Studies Shelf

Oy Mame! Oy Mame!: I Looked into the Eyes of Evil
Chana Gutreiman Goldberg
3rd Coast Books
https://www.3rdcoastbooks.com
9781946743367, $13.95, PB, 145pp

https://www.amazon.com/Oy-Mame-Looked-into-Eyes/dp/1946743364

Synopsis: "Oy Mame! Oy Mame!: I Looked into the Eyes of Evil" is the personal story of Holocaust survivor Abraham Gutreiman and is based on his oral recollections captured during a series of video interviews when he was 90 years old. It includes many stories that he told multiple times over the years to everyone he came across. This time, knowing his end was near, he intended they should be recorded for future generations. The final chapters of this book were recorded later and continue his experiences until his departure from this world aged 95.

Abraham's story beings with his earliest memories as a young Orthodox Jewish boy living in Parysow, located some 50 kilometers southeast of Warsaw, Poland. His family was poor but hard-working. Looking to secure a better future for his family, his father had made a down payment on a house in the nearby town of Garwolin, an act that led to his betrayal and death.

The family, stunned by this tragic loss, were forced to recover through the endeavors of the children until September 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded and occupied the western half of Poland, which included Parysow. A Judenrat and Ghetto were established, leading to the eventual deportation of the region's Jews to the Treblinka death camp in 1942.

During the journey, a fellow deportee used a smuggled hacksaw to cut through the iron bars in the window of the cattle car. People were pushed out of the small opening, many dying from the fall, but Abraham survived and made his way to a house owned by a sympathetic Polish gentile known to the family. After an anxious 9-day wait, his elder brother Yankel (Jacobo) arrived at the house. Due to Yankel's indiscrete behavior in locating the house, the two brothers spent the remainder of the war on the run.

Surviving the war and its immediate aftermath, Abraham met and married Frieda, who understood Yankel would remain with them for some time. The three refugees made their way through Germany, Italy, Brazil to settle for some years in Bolivia before finally reaching Costa Rica. Abraham and Frieda built a family, which included Yankel until his death at the age of 101.

Critique: With the publication of "Oy Mame! Oy Mame!: I Looked into the Eyes of Evil", by the team of co-authors Chana Gutreiman Goldberg, Max Gutreiman, and Mauricio Vargas Ortega,
the reader is provided with a vividly memorable and informatively detailed exploration of Abraham's battles with poverty, evil, adversity, and his relationship with God -- all against the horrific background of the Holocaust. A valued addition to the growing library of Holocaust literature, "Oy Mame! Oy Mame!" is an especially and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, college, and university library Jewish Biography/Memoir collections in general, and supplemental Holocaust History curriculum studies lists in particular. It should be noted for students, academia, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in th subject that "Oy Mame! Oy Mame!" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $3.99).

Editorial Note #1: Chana Gutreiman Goldberg was born in Munich, Germany in 1949. She is a sociologist, who previously worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Editorial Note #2: Max Gutreiman Goldberg was born in La Paz, Bolivia in 1955. He currently lives in San Jose, Costa Rica where he practices as a Medical Internist.

Editorial Note #3: Mauricio Vargas Ortega was born in Santa Ana, Costa Rica in 1971. He is a writer, researcher, and professor. As one of the authors of this book, his task was to give a literary structure to the faithful transcriptions of the life stories of Abraham Gutreiman.

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