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Reviews
Ester and Ruzya: How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler's War and Stalin's Peace by Masha Gessen
zwyrdish's review against another edition
5.0
I enjoyed this book as much as if it were fiction, and learned more about life in the Soviet Union than I ever knew. It reads just like a novel, and I had a hard time remembering it wasn't - but then there would be a photo to bring it back. To have two such incredible grandmothers and learn about the lives they led must have been a revelation for Masha Gessen. It isn't cliche at all to say they "survived" Hitler and Stalin, they really went through the wringer more than once, but they persevered and lived to tell the tale to their curious grandchild, who also happens to be a brilliant writer. I so admire that these two managed to hold their friendships and families together under some really brutal circumstances. Gessen does a fabulous job bringing them to life. Their strength, love, and determination really shone through - but the honesty impressed me, as well. I've already recommended this to my cousin, a voracious reader, and I'm going to look into the author's other books. Seems like she (and her mother) didn't fall far from the tree.
smeyers22's review against another edition
4.0
This is a moving memoir about struggles, losses and compromises these 2 different and courageous Jewish grandmothers had to make over the course of the 1930s - 1950s primarily in the Soviet Union but also in occupied Poland. I learned a lot about WW2 from the Russian perspective, the fear and terror of living under autocratic Stalinism and the extent of anti-semitism in education and employment.
lenehall's review against another edition
2.0
I found a lot of food for thought in this book despite its mediocre writing. Stories of WW2 are endlessly fascinating to me; I am amazed at both the victim's strength & the victimizer's capacity for evil. Where those 2 roles overlap, the ethics get murky and dirty and real.
mara_miriam's review against another edition
4.0
I have such an intellectual crush on the author and this book just added to my endearment of her. This is a heart-breaking history, told with a lot of love and compassion, and it's just very well written. The author's family emphasized the nuances and complexities of history, both personal and political, that are generally ignored, forgotten, or discarded because they are too hard to sit with. This book makes me think differently about my family and the way they have lived their lives within confining historical contexts.
justabean_reads's review
5.0
It's pretty rare for me to chew through non-fiction this fast, but I couldn't put this one down.
The storyline follows the lives of the author's grandmothers, both Jewish one from Moscow, one from Poland, from their birth through to the present day, with a focus on how they survived WWII and Stalinist Russia. The book illuminates their careers, their loves, their children. It shows better than anything else I've read what living in Russia int eh '40s and '50s felt like, and at its heart it's about choices.
At the very centre of the book, in terms of page count, are a set of potentially conflicting accounts of the actions of Gessen's great grandfather, who was an elder in a Nazi-run ghetto in Poland. The information is unclear, possibly contradictory. Was he a hero or a collaborator? What choices did he make? What choices did he have? How did he die? Each option is explored, conclusions are implied.
The ghetto story a microscale of the rest of the book, in which his daughter and the woman who will eventually be her best friend, the mother of the girl his grandson will marry, make those choices their whole lives. What is folding to the state, compromising your ethics, protecting your family, staying alive? Do you turn away a job for the secret police if that job will keep your baby from starving? If you do, what then? If you don't, what then?
I'm making this sound unrelentingly grim, and certainly bad things happen in it and the central characters suffer, but both of these women lived and even thrived in a hostile state, built careers and families, and have children and grandchildren who did the same. Maybe at it's heart it's also about growing potatoes on Mars: survival against all odds.
The writing itself is gorgeous and compelling. I hadn't run into Gessen before, aside from an essay that pointed me to this book, but I will be reading them again.
The storyline follows the lives of the author's grandmothers, both Jewish one from Moscow, one from Poland, from their birth through to the present day, with a focus on how they survived WWII and Stalinist Russia. The book illuminates their careers, their loves, their children. It shows better than anything else I've read what living in Russia int eh '40s and '50s felt like, and at its heart it's about choices.
At the very centre of the book, in terms of page count, are a set of potentially conflicting accounts of the actions of Gessen's great grandfather, who was an elder in a Nazi-run ghetto in Poland. The information is unclear, possibly contradictory. Was he a hero or a collaborator? What choices did he make? What choices did he have? How did he die? Each option is explored, conclusions are implied.
The ghetto story a microscale of the rest of the book, in which his daughter and the woman who will eventually be her best friend, the mother of the girl his grandson will marry, make those choices their whole lives. What is folding to the state, compromising your ethics, protecting your family, staying alive? Do you turn away a job for the secret police if that job will keep your baby from starving? If you do, what then? If you don't, what then?
I'm making this sound unrelentingly grim, and certainly bad things happen in it and the central characters suffer, but both of these women lived and even thrived in a hostile state, built careers and families, and have children and grandchildren who did the same. Maybe at it's heart it's also about growing potatoes on Mars: survival against all odds.
The writing itself is gorgeous and compelling. I hadn't run into Gessen before, aside from an essay that pointed me to this book, but I will be reading them again.
michaelnlibrarian's review
5.0
Truly the most remarkable book I have read in some time.
Well executed blend of personal recollections, information gathered through conversation with family and others, and history.
Well executed blend of personal recollections, information gathered through conversation with family and others, and history.
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