JEWISH SENTINEL

24 JEWISH SENTINEL • JUNE 18 - 24, 2021 I say I won’t review another book about the Holocaust, but maybe it’s my ever-growing senility, perhaps I’m a secret masochist. By AARON LEIBEL E very time I finish reviewing a book about the Holocaust, I resolve, “Never again.” I will not relive, at least in my imag- ination, the horrors of the ultimate Jewish – or human – nightmare, ever again. And then some publisher throws a book through the transom. May- be it’s my ever-growing senility, perhaps I’m a secret masochist. Whatever it is, I get hooked. Irena’s War: A Novel fits nicely into that pattern. Gestapo big-wig Klaus Haupt- mann comes to Warsaw to consoli- date Nazi rule. He is a monster who one moment is loving and kind to his wife and daughter and the next is unspeakably cruel to others. Once, he went to check on Ger- man soldiers who had forced 14 Polish citizens, all professional people, to leave their apartments in the middle of the night and congre- gate outside. Her specialty was organizing food programs for the poor, helping her fellow Polish Catholics. Hauptmann insisted she contin- ue feeding the poor under the new regime. She agreed, but surrepti- tiously and at great personal risk, created fictitious Polish families and used the food the Nazis allo- cated for them to feed Jewish fam- ilies, which were not eligible for food rations. Eventually, to see the love of her life, Adam, who was impris- oned with all his fellow Jews in the ghetto and to help those wretched people, Irena became an inspector for communicable diseases in that open-air prison. Her first trip to the ghetto shocked her: “There were starving people everywhere as she walked Hauptmann made sure that all was done according to orders, even reprimanding a soldier for not be- ing polite to the prisoners, and then told the officer in charge to shoot them all. Irena Sendler, a historical fig- ure, was a Polish social worker. along. Worse yet were the dead. Every block there was at least one body lying on the pavement, naked except for newspapers cov- ering them along with a thin layer of snow. The pedestrians ignored these corpses as if they didn’t ex- ist, but Irena could not stop staring at them.” She worked with the Polish Un- derground to save Jewish children when the Nazis decided to liqui- date the ghetto and murder all its inhabitants. She oganized rescues of children using the sewer system to bring the Her War, Our Treasure Another good story from the Holocaust BOOK REVIEW Irena’s War: A Novel By James D. Shipman Kensington Books, 2020 360 pp., $15.95 Prison cells in Cologne that once housed Gestapo regional headquarters. The novel tells of a heroine helping Jews escape a similar prison, after which she was tortured by the Gestapo. continued on page 25 NEW YORK STYLE DELI SERVING Pastrami • Corned Beef • Roast Beef • Brisket • Pastrami Salmon • Turkey Hamburgers • Hot Dogs • Stuffed Knishes • Nathan’s French Fries And Much More! Join us Friday and Saturday evenings starting Memorial Day Weekend NEW YORK STYLE DELI SERVING Pastrami • Corned Beef • Roast Beef • Brisket • Pastrami Salmon • Turkey Hamburgers • Hot Dogs • Stuffed Knishes • Nathan’s French Fries And Much Mor ! Join us Friday and Saturday evenings starting Memorial Day Weekend WESTHAMPTON BEACH The Best and Only Jewish Style Deli in the Hamptons 631-998-3878