WE MUST NOT THINK OF OURSELVES by Lauren Grodstein - REVIEW

WE MUST NOT THINK OF OURSELVES (AlgonquinBooks) by Lauren Grodstein is a thought-provoking eyewitness account of WWII. It's based on diaries that can be found in the Oneg Shabbat Archives in Warsaw. I was not aware of this particular story and it left me speechless.

Adam Poskow was a 40-year-old childless widow and professor who was sent to the Warsaw ghetto by his Catholic father-in-law. Poskow keeps diaries of other people living in the ghetto, so their memories and dreams are preserved and not forgotten. 

He documents the horrors of living in the ghetto. He writes a first person uncompromising narrative about the people who have to beg for food, have mental breakdowns, are killed in the streets by Nazis for no reason and see their bodies for food and passports. But despite this treatment some people are hopeful and dream of escaping their Nazis imprisonment to another country.

WE MUST NOT THINK OF OURSELVES is a difficult emotional read. Despite Grodstein's outstanding storytelling and brilliant writing, I still can't even imagine experiencing what these people did. It explains the importance of this novel because we must never forget the Nazis killed six-million Jews during WWII. 

NEVER AGAIN.

Lauren Grodstein is the author of "Our Short History," which Karen Russell calls, "funny and fast-paced and extraordinarily insightful on every page" Her previous novels include the New York Times bestselling "A Friend of the Family," along with "The Explanation for Everything," "Reproduction is the Flaw of Love," and the short story collection "The Best of Animals."

She teaches creative writing at the Camden campus of Rutgers University, where she helps administer the university MFA program, and lives in New Jersey, near Rutgers, with her husband and her young son.