Maya Krapina

We Remember Lest the World Forget Maya Krapina

This extraordinary book is a collection of memories from child survivors of the Minsk Ghetto, Belarus. These are rare and moving personal testimonies, and this is a book of some significance for it opens a window on the rarely told story of the Holocaust in Belarus, in particular the Minsk Ghetto. Between 1941 and 1943 approximately 80,000 Jews lived in or pass through that place of terror; as a result of starvation and repeated brutal pogroms most did not survive. A few were helped by brave Byelorussian locals who risked their own lives to save them. Others, many of them mere children like the narrators of these stories, managed to escape to the partisans living in the nearby forests. Having reached the relative safety of partisan camps, some even returned to Minsk to rescue their families and neighbours. Several of their dangerous missions are described within the pages of this powerful book. These stories which recount the memories of the Minsk Ghetto survivors are a testimony to the extraordinary power and resilience of the human spirit.