Stephan Collishaw's Blog - Posts Tagged "holocaust"
Memory and Forgetting in Vilnius
The Last Girl, my first novel, deals with memory and forgetting, specifically related to the destruction of the Jewish community in Vilnius.
Daumantas, the protagonist of the novel, finds memories bubbling to the surface after fifty years of repression.
The Soviet occupation of Lithuania had allowed history to be suppressed, particularly the specific destruction of the Jewish community under the heading of 'victims of fascism'.
The novels core is the dilemma of what you would do given the opportunity to save a life at risk of your own. Daumantas is offered the daughter of a Jewish friend in the ghetto as the German soldiers close in to liquidate the Jewish population.
Did he take the little girl?
Would he risk his safety to save the life of another?
25 years after independence, Lithuania still struggles to come to terms with the holocaust. Holocaust denial and obfuscation grew rather than receded when the Soviets left the little country.
Its hard to look back. To look the events in the eye and say that despite all our excuses, despite our fear, we did not do well. We did not choose well. We did not act well.
The Last Girl and Amber have just been released as ebooks.
Daumantas, the protagonist of the novel, finds memories bubbling to the surface after fifty years of repression.
The Soviet occupation of Lithuania had allowed history to be suppressed, particularly the specific destruction of the Jewish community under the heading of 'victims of fascism'.
The novels core is the dilemma of what you would do given the opportunity to save a life at risk of your own. Daumantas is offered the daughter of a Jewish friend in the ghetto as the German soldiers close in to liquidate the Jewish population.
Did he take the little girl?
Would he risk his safety to save the life of another?
25 years after independence, Lithuania still struggles to come to terms with the holocaust. Holocaust denial and obfuscation grew rather than receded when the Soviets left the little country.
Its hard to look back. To look the events in the eye and say that despite all our excuses, despite our fear, we did not do well. We did not choose well. We did not act well.
The Last Girl and Amber have just been released as ebooks.
