Sheva's Promise

Chronicle of Escape from a Nazi Ghetto

Sylvia Lederman

Narrated by Gwen Trussler

Available from Audible

Book published by Syracuse University Press

In this gripping memoir, Lederman tells her story of survival during one of the most horrific episodes in history. Beginning with Lederman as a young girl in Poland in 1941, Sheva’s Promise traces her experience in a Nazi ghetto with her mother and sister. Resolved that she must avoid the detention camp to help her family, Lederman obtains a false birth certificate and escapes the ghetto. Through the courage and humanity of a few individuals, she finds work in a hospital in Germany under an assumed identity. With fierce determination and resourcefulness, Lederman manages to elude Nazi capture and eventually immigrates to the United States with her husband.

Sheva’s Promise is not only an invaluable piece of historical record but also the work of a gifted writer whose keen eye for detail and skillful attention to language gives readers an unforgettable story.

REVIEWS:

“The author has strikingly portrayed the relationship between a hidden Jewish young woman and her rescuers. Her theological and psychological ruminations are heartbreaking and simultaneously portray her own coping skills and resilience. Time is running out and the story must be told before it is too late.”

—Alan L. Berger, Florida Atlantic University

“A young woman questions the morality of her survival in this stunning Holocaust testimony by Sylvia Lederman. How can she love her family while leaving them behind? How can she accept help from other families at the risk of their lives? How can she be true to herself while living under a false identity? In the end, there is no purpose but surviving to tell the story, and this she does in graceful and shattering prose.”

—Lorrie Greenhouse Gardella, University of Saint Joseph, Connecticut