“Based on years of painstaking research, travel, and oral histories, this is an important work about the Holocaust and how it affected the author’s family. But like Shalom Aleichem’s Tevya stories, Judy Stone’s Resilience is not just about one family—it’s about all families, because in it she captures the essence of family life everywhere: hardship and hope, estrangement and love, and the desire we all share to preserve the best of those who came before.”
—Peter Lovenheim, journalist and author of In the Neighborhood
“Dr. Stone’s oral history, describing how her family survived the Holocaust, is among the best of the genre—well written and, above all, riveting. Highly recommended.”
—Jack R. Fischel, PhD, Emeritus Professor of History, Millersville University, and author of The Holocaust and The Historical Dictionary of the Holocaust
“There is so much to admire in this wonderful book about horror, love, family, hate, endurance, and memory: the reporting and research, at once sweeping and granular, that unearths the history of Stone’s family; the acutely focused writing, exquisitely phrased but utterly free of artifice; and Stone’s voice and presence, which are at once authoritative, thoroughly honest, and immeasurably understanding. Stone conveys with uncommon power what was lost in the crescendo of othering we call the Holocaust.”
—David Dobbs, author of My Mother’s Lover and contributor to National Geographic and the Atlantic
“Peopled by a large cast of unforgettable characters, this brave and unflinching second-generation family memoir is a daughter’s coming of terms with her parents’ tragic past and with her own demons. Stone wrests a redemptive victory for the survivors and their descendants in this riveting narrative of history’s darkest moments.”
—Elaine Kalman Naves, author of Journey to Vaja and Shoshanna’s Story
“Remembering can be painful, and eliciting and sharing painful memories takes courage. Author and physician Judy Stone and her family prove they are more than courageous. Resilience will hurt your heart but may also help heal some of our deepest wounds.”
—Amy Friedman, author of Desperado’s Wife
“How many of us have said of aging parents and grandparents, ‘I wish I had asked more questions’? Judy Stone did just that. Unlike many Holocaust memoir authors who focus on victimization and survival, Dr. Stone gives us a three-dimensional view of a family before, during, and after the Shoah. This book is well researched and well written and fills in gaps that have previously been left for many of us in our attempts to understand the Holocaust.”
—Jack Paskoff, Rabbi, Congregation Shaarai Shomayim, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
“A beautiful and important read, Judy Stone’s memoir is a daughter’s quest to memorialize not only the pain and sorrow her immigrant mother and family faced but also how they transcended the unimaginable. She draws readers into the vulnerable space of her family life, and we emerge more fully human.”
—Sunita Puri, MD, author of That Good Night
“With the diligence of someone undertaking a sacred mission, Judy Stone excavates the history of her family as the Angel of Death passed over it during the Holocaust. In Judaism, there is a saying after a relative dies: ‘May their memory be as a blessing.’ In these times, the memories of Stone’s family members are not just a blessing—they are a stern warning of horrors that must never be forgotten lest they be repeated.”
—Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes
“As a child survivor of the Holocaust who owes his life to a Dutch-Indonesian family and their Muslim nanny who shielded him from the Nazis, I was especially drawn to Judy Stone’s remarkable memoir, Resilience. Judy’s indefatigable research and remarkable ear for detail give us an honest, near-firsthand account of Jewish family life in the small towns of Eastern Hungary before the Holocaust. Resilience bears witness to the Holocaust from the standpoint of one family but holds lessons for all who embrace ‘Never Again.’”
—Alfred Munzer, MD, Holocaust child survivor, retired physician, and volunteer, US Holocaust Memorial Museum
“Stone’s story of her family’s experiences before, during, and after the Holocaust is full of sharp observations and insights. Her portrait of the chaos following the war and the toll it inflicted is especially riveting. By sheer persistence and determination, Stone’s family members survived seemingly insurmountable difficulties with their essential humanity and decency intact. This book lovingly recounts their strengths and weaknesses while portraying their experiences and offers lessons to us all.”
—Judith Graham, journalist
“Stone brings her family’s stories to life in her book and underscores their message: to go on being kind and brave in such a savage place is what it means to be human. The kind and brave Anne Frank would be ninety this year if she’d lived, but she and her sister, Margot, perished in the Holocaust as teenagers when an epidemic of typhus swept through the camp where they struggled to survive. It’s wonderful to be able to read of two sisters who made it out.”
—Miriam Shuchman, MD, physician-journalist and author of The Drug Trial
“While the Holocaust survivors’ generation is almost gone, their children and grandchildren continue to tell us their stories. Despite all the horror of the Holocaust, the survivors had enough strength to return to normal life, raise children, and share their stories. Judy Stone’s book not only preserves for us the unique story of her family but also shows what horrible destruction is brought to the world by racism, chauvinism, and antisemitism.”
—Victoria Khiterer, PhD, Associate Professor of History, Millersville University
“Dr. Judy Stone, in her amazing analysis of the Holocaust in its last year or so of violence and murder, forces us to ponder what Jews were experiencing in what Elie Wiesel called the ‘Town beyond the Wall’—and what they were thinking of those far beyond those walls who could have helped rescue them but did not. . . . She stands up courageously in protecting future generations of survivors and rescuers who know that for documenting and analyzing the Holocaust, we never can claim ‘enough.’”
—Hillel Levine, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Sociology, Religion, and Judaic Studies, Boston University, and President, International Center for Conciliation
“Dr. Judy Stone eloquently highlights the intergenerational resilience that binds and unites the Jewish people. Together, we work daily to make good on an almost six-thousand-year commitment to tikkun olam, repairing the world.”
—Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, author of Science Tikkun and Dean, National School of Tropical Medicine
“The book is a pleasure to read. It reads like a documentary, a novel, a social history, and historical fiction all at once. Stone has a gift for clear prose that is rich with meaning and imagery.”
—Manuel Reich, MD, psychiatrist and child of survivors
“Resilience is an intimate biography of two intertwined families from rural Hungary. Judy Stone’s attention to detail, and her own resilience in telling this difficult story, is an impressive achievement.”
—Mark Celinscak, Louis and Frances Blumkin Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Nebraska Omaha
“As a child of Holocaust survivors, I read Judy’s account of her family’s remarkable story with a mix of admiration and regret. While my parents’ stories are well documented, I personally have not done the deep work that Judy has taken on with this inspiring story, told from multiple family members’ experiences. Unique in the sheer number of members of her mother’s family who survived, the stories of each individual are told with honesty, remarkable consistency in detail, and a full account of how the events leading up to and during the Holocaust directly impacted each person’s trajectory in its aftermath. Each character is flawed yet heroic and seen with a loving and critical eye in Judy’s allegiance to truth.
“Most important are Judy’s repeated cautions that we note in our own time today the unmistakable and, tragically, all-too-familiar signs of an inexorable shift nationally and worldwide toward racism, white supremacy, antisemitism, demonization of the ‘other,’ and inexplicable appeal of extreme-right fascist and totalitarian leaders taking the reins of what we believed to be progressive and civilized countries. These cautions flow organically from the events as they unfolded in the years and months preceding the horrors she describes.
“As an educator at a school that values the teaching of history as key to our capacity to educate the next generation to be discerning citizens and an educated electorate, I believe that this book is a crucial ‘first person account’ reading for students from middle school through university.”
—Avi Baran Munro, EdM, Head of School, Community Day School, Pittsburgh
“Her connections between social conditions, disease, and survival results is more than just another family memoir of surviving Nazi death camps . . . It probes the roots of resilience, considers hope, kindness, and gratitude in the face of suffering, and weaves these themes into an inspirational family memoir . .”
“Another big difference . . is that Dr. Stone reviews past experiences, present-day choices, and the influences that shape personalities and perspectives on how to live life . . Resilience draws important connections between events and their generational influence.”
“While Resilience is highly recommended for any Jewish history collection strong in autobiographies of Holocaust experience, it would be a shame to limit its audience to this group alone. It holds invaluable lessons for those interested in family dynamics, the legacy of survival, adaptation and change, and how to ultimately make the world a gentler, more peaceful place.”
—Midwest Book Review
—Norm Goldman, Bookpleasures.com
—Phil Jason, The Jewish News
—Marco De Ambrogi, TheLancet.com