Carole Ford's sensitive profile of young Holocaust survivors whose lives intertwine at the Girls' Club in Brooklyn sheds light on the challenges of forging a new life alone. The Club gave them opportunities for friendship, education and enabled them to rebuild their lives. Theirs are compelling narratives, told with compassion and grace. As we get to know them, we also find that we like them and celebrate their joys as they become wives and mothers, housewives, students, professionals, community volunteers, and very doting grandmothers. Despite their horrific experiences in Nazi occupied Poland, most of them refused to be victimized further and instead overcame the odds and led fulfilling and happy lives."
Myrna Goldenberg, coauthor of Testimony, Tensions, and Tikkun: Teaching the Holocaust in Colleges and Universities Carole Bell Ford gets at and renders with clarity and sensitivity the life histories of a fascinating group of young female Holocaust survivors. These histories are complex, filled with irony, ambiguity and compassion —in short, humanity. Without extraneous academic apparatus, and without falling into the trap of seeing horrific experience as somehow making its victims 'better for it,' Ford and her interlocutors tell us something very important, and yes, even hopeful about human resilience.
Gerald Sorin, Distinguished Professor of Jewish and American Studies State University of New York at New Paltz