User:Courtney Fewell/Sara Nomberg-Przytyk

Sara Nomberg-Przytyk (1915, Lublin, Poland-1990 Quebec, Canada) was a Polish prisoner in Auschwitz from 1944 to 1945, and Holocaust (Shoah) survivor. She wrote several memoirs, her most notable: "Auschwitz: True Tales from a Grotesque Land'' was published in 1987.

Biography

Born in Lublin, Poland in 1915, Sara Nomberg-Przytyk was raised in an Orthodox Jewish setting, facing anti-Semitism throughout her time in Poland. Attending the University of Warsaw, Nomberg-Przytyk served as another representative of the “educated” prisoners in Auschwitz (much like Primo Levi). Due to her communist involvement, Nomberg-Przytyk spent several years in Polish prisons. Hiding in Bialystok, Poland after the Germans invaded in 1939, Nomberg-Przytyk was found in a ghetto in 1943. Sent to a camp at Stutthof (Poland), Nomberg-przytyk was shortly thereafter deported to Auschwitz, “Danuta Czech’s Auschwitz Chronicle mentions a transport that reached Auschwitz from Strutthof on January 12, 1944.” Nomberg-Pryztyk was considered to be among the “lucky” 134 women that survived the January 12, 1944 transport because she mentions becoming a “Zugang” on Januray 13. Nomberg-Przytyk details her experience, as well as the tales of others, in her memoir entitled Auschwitz: True Tales from a Grotesque Land. As she writes in her memoir, Nomberg-Przytyk along with her fellow prisoners was forced to participate in the death-march to Ravensbruck. Moving back to Poland after “her liberation in late April 1945,” Nomberg-Przytyk “marred in 1946, started a family, and worked as a journalist in Lublin." Writing her experiences from the Holocaust in her memoir. Auschwitz: True Tales from a Grotesque Land, Nomberg-Przytyk faced many obstacles trying to publish her work in Poland (See Works). Despite her career and Holocaust memoir, Nomberg-Pryztyk was forced to emigrate from Poland during the “anti-Semitic campaign against the Jews in 1968.” Fleeing with her family, Nomberg-Przytk moved to Israel, the country that would finally publish her Holocaust memoir. Nomberg-Przytyk remained in Israel until 1980. Dying in 1990, Nomberg-Przytyk spent her last ten years of life on the farm of her eldest son, Jurek Przytyk in Quebec, Canada.

Works


 * Esther's Frist Born, 1985
 * Auschwitz: True Tales from a Grotesque Land, 1985

Nomberg-Przytyk is one of few Holocaust memoirists and one of even fewer female memoirists. While her memoir is not among the most popular of it's kind, it is valuable as a part of history and for her take on the events of the Holocaust from a woman's perspective. Auschwitz: True Tales from a Grotesque Land was smuggled out of Poland in 1967 just prior to its publication and printing, when the Polish Communist government insisted that she remove all references to "Jews". In protest, Nomberg-Przytyk emigrated to Israel and left her manuscript in the Yad Vashem archives. She has written two additional memoirs that have not been translated into English. Nomberg-Przytyk is praised for her creative narrative style where she recollects not only her experiences, but tells the stories of others. She is able to turn these singular events into a story; "The result is not fiction but imagination and creativity that reveal truth to be both stranger and more compelling than fiction" (Different Voices).

Legacy