Yaron Reshef's Blog

Friends,
It is my great pleasure to share with you that the audiobook version of my story "Out of the Shoebox" is now available at Audible, at Amazon, and it will be available on iTunes (Apple store) in couple of days.
I teamed with Dennis Kleinman that beautifully narrated my book and made it available for you.
I hope you will enjoy my story.
Please share this information with your friends.

https://www.amazon.com/Out-of-the-Sho...

http://www.audible.com/pd/Bios-Memoir...

It is a big honor for me that my book "Out of the Shoebox" was added to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Collection.
The memoir tells the story of the second generation holocaust survivors.

This review of my book was published in the Jerusalem Post (Israel) a few months ago and I got it only today :-)

http://www.jpost.com/Blogs/From-Dorot...

More than 70,000 readers with passion for genealogy and for family stories downloaded my eBook during the last nine months. Many friends wrote me that they missed my book when it was free and few had technical issues and didn’t download it. Therefore I decided to give my book for FREE again on August 15th 2015. The book will be free from 00:10 to 24:00 Pacific Standard Time (PST).
As I tolled in the past, I was helped by many good people when I was searching for my family roots, which able me to tell my story. My story is typical to the 2nd generation holocaust survivors; it is also typical to many who are struggling to find information about their families. Most of you are helping regularly other people to find important information related to their family history. Most of you are doing it voluntarily. Therefore I want to give you my book "Out of the Shoebox" as a gift of appreciation.
I hope that you will enjoy reading my story. You are welcome to recommend this free book to your friends.
You don’t need a Kindle in order to read a Kindle eBook. You can search in Google and download an app for your tablet, laptop, desktop or smart phone.
Please use (click) the "buy Now" button and not the "Read for Free". The "buy now" will cost $0.00
This information is available through Facebook groups only. You can share this link with your friends. Your reviews on Amazon will be appreciated.
For my free eBook go to: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ONT6N0A

My eBook will be FREE again for you on April 25th.

More than 5000 friends and collogues with passion for genealogy and for family stories downloaded my eBook on late February. Many more missed it and some had technical issues and didn’t download it. Therefore I decided to give my book FREE again on April 25th 2015. The book will be free from 01:00 to 24:00 Pacific Time(PT).

I was helped by many good people when I was searching for my family roots, and to be able to tell my story. My story is typical to the 2nd generation holocaust survivors; it is also typical to many who are struggling to find information about their families. Most of you are helping regularly other people to find important information related to their family history. Most of you are doing it voluntarily. Therefore I want to give you my book "Out of the Shoebox" as a gift of appreciation.
My best seller eBook "Out of the Shoebox" will be free on Amazon (kindle) on April 25th only. I hope that you will enjoy reading it. You are welcome to recommend this free book to your friends.
You don’t need a Kindle in order to read a Kindle eBook. You can search in Google and download an app for your tablet, laptop, desktop or smart phone.
For the free eBook go to: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ONT6N0A

My book will be free for you soon.

This post will be published on most of the genealogy groups on Facebook soon.

Dear friends and collogues that have passion for genealogy,
I was helped by many good people to find my family roots, and to be able to tell my story. My story is typical to the 2nd generation holocaust survivors; it is also typical to many who are struggling to find information about their families. Most of you are helping regularly other people to find important information related to their family history. Most of you are doing it voluntarily. Therefore I want to give you my book "Out of the Shoebox" as a gift of appreciation.

My best seller "Out of the Shoebox" will be free on Amazon (kindle) on February 28th and March 1st. I hope that you will enjoy reading it.

For the free book go to this link on the free eBook dates: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ONT6N0A

A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction

Are Ka-Tzetnik books Fiction or Nonfiction novels?
I think they are Memoirs and absolutely Nonfiction novels.

In her remarkable book A Thousand
Darknesses, critic Ruth Franklin comments that “we worry that we are insulting the dead” by wanting explicit images of the Shoah, as if to speak bluntly would be unforgivably vulgar. But, Franklin adds, we also want a “direct channel” to the Holocaust, a quasi-experience of it. Ka-Tzetnik shows us, as other survivors have, that even those who were there have no direct channel. No matter how grossly palpable he makes the terrors of the death camps, he still cannot reveal them completely. He is haunted, as we are, by the lines of doomed eyes; by the untellable truth of someone else’s death.

Ka-Tsetnik wrote about fifteen books, most of them about the holocaust. His most famous novel is "The House of Dolls" 1955.

Not to be forgotten

Q. What was the reason that you hid your identity behind the pseudonym “K. Zetnik,” Mr. Dinur?

A. It was not a pen name. I do not regard myself as a writer and a composer of literary material. This is a chronicle of the planet of Auschwitz. I was there for about two years. Time there was not like it is here on earth. Every fraction of a minute there passed on a different scale of time. And the inhabitants of this planet had no names, they had no parents nor did they have children. There they did not dress in the way we dress here; they were not born there and they did not give birth; they breathed according to different laws of nature; they did not live – nor did they die – according to the laws of this world. Their name was the number “Kazetnik”.* {*23Kazett=Konzentrationslager – Katzetnik: inmate of a concentration camp} They were clad there, how would you call it…

Q. Yes. Is this what you wore there? [Shows the witness the prison garb of Auschwitz.]

A. This is the garb of the planet called Auschwitz. And I believe with perfect faith that I have to continue to bear this name so long as the world has not been aroused after this crucifixion of a nation, to wipe out this evil, in the same way as humanity was aroused after the crucifixion of one man. I believe with perfect faith that, just as in astrology the stars influence our destiny, so does this planet of the ashes, Auschwitz, stand in opposition to our planet earth, and influences it.
If I am able to stand before you today and relate the events within that planet, if I, a fall- out of that planet, am able to be here at this time, then I believe with perfect faith that this is due to the oath I sworn to them there. They gave me this strength. This oath was the armour with which I acquired the supernatural power, so that I should be able, after time – the time of Auschwitz – the two years when I was a Musselman, to overcome it. For they left me, they always left me, they were parted from me, and this oath always appeared in the look of their eyes.
For close on two years they kept on taking leave of me and they always left me behind. I see them, they are staring at me, I see them, I saw them standing in the queue…

Memories should be nurtured. That’s the only way to preserve them. And nurturing them is done through a story that breathes life and validity into them. You relate the memories, and they return the favor by growing stronger and finding a safe, permanent spot in your consciousness, until they become part of you.

I got a phone call from Paris yesterday night. A young lady was on the line. She read my book and found that her grandfather was the same age of my father, and from the same small town in "Galicia" (Ukraine of today). Both went out from the small town to study architecture; my father to Vienne, and her grandfather to Paris and became a painter. Her grandfather, André Blondel, was a very talented painter that unfortunately died in a tragic accident in 1949 after he survived the WW2.
This was one of few surprises I got after my book "out of the shoebox" was published.

You can't imagine what you can find when you read a non-fiction novel …

For me, as an author, the story never stops.