In Memory's Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezin

by Michael Berenbaum director, Sigi Ziering In, Cara de Silva, Bianca Steiner Brown

Overview

The sheets of paper are as brittle as fallen leaves; the faltering handwriting changes from page to page; the words, a faded brown, are almost indecipherable. The pages are filled with recipes. Each is a memory, a fantasy, a hope for the future. Written by undernourished and starving women in the Czechoslovakian ghetto/concentration camp of Terezín (also known as Theresienstadt), the recipes give instructions for making beloved dishes in the rich, robust Czech tradition. Sometimes steps or ingredients are missing, the gaps a painful illustration of the condition and situation in which the authors lived. Reprinting the contents of the original hand-sewn copybook, In Memory's Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezín is a beautiful memorial to the brave women who defied Hitler by preserving a part of their heritage and a part of themselves. Despite the harsh conditions in the Nazis' "model" ghetto - which in reality was a way station to Auschwitz and other death camps - cultural, intellectual, and artistic life did exist within the walls of the ghetto. Like the heart-breaking book I Never Saw Another Butterfly, which contains the poetry and drawings of the children of Terezín, the handwritten cookbook is proof that the Nazis could not break the spirit of the Jewish people.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780742546462
Publisher:	Aronson, Jason Inc.
Publication date:	03/10/2006
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	1,118,453
Product dimensions:	6.22(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.46(d)

About the Author

Cara De Silva is an award-winning journalist, whose writings have appeared in Newsday, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times Syndicate, The New York Daily News, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Eating Well, Martha Stewart Living, Cuisine, and Diversion. In addition, she has been featured on local, national, and international television and radio shows, including The News Hour with Jim Lehrer (PBS), The Morning Show (CNN), All Things Considered (NPR), and The Voice of America. She lives in New York, NY.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Foreword Chapter 2 Acknowledgments Chapter 3 Introduction Chapter 4 MINA'S COOKBOOK Chapter 5 Recipes Chapter 6 Recipe List for the original manuscript Chapter 7 Practical Notes Chapter 8 Poems by Wilhelmina (Mina) Pächter Chapter 9 Letters by Wilhelmina (Mina) Pächter Chapter 10 Wilhelmina Pächter: A Biographical Sketch Chapter 11 Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

Their food comes not from the concentration camp, but from their pasts, from the days when they had cooked in freedom, when they had dinners to plan and holidays to celebrate.

Associated Press

Those brave women contributed something of tremendous value, not simply an historical document but a lesson in humanity.

|Los Angeles Times

Not a cookbook, though it has seventy recipes, but a Holocaust document, compiled as an act of defiance in a concentration camp

The New York Times

The precious pages of Mina Pachter's cookbook are full of snapshots of life before and during World War II, inside and outside the concentration camps.

The Review of Higher Education

The work of women whose memories were distorted by starvation, the book born in Terezín is both intimate and disturbing—a poignant reminder of a lost world and a spirit that refused to die.

People Magazine

A story of recipes and resistance.

Jim Lehrer News Hour Pbs

A monument to the women of Terezín who saw beyond indescribable horror and sent the food of their hearts to nourish ours.

Newsweek