In the Mouth of the Wolf

The author might best be described as spunky -- going from a sheltered, conservative Jewish childhood to the nitty-gritty business of survival on false papers, looking blackmailers and Nazis and potential rapists in the eye, refusing to be intimidated and ready to defend herself with shouting or

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deceit or even boiling water if necessary. She goes into significant, interesting detail of the day-to-day business of hiding, the difficulties in finding a suitable job and place to live, etc. She was fortunate in having a "good" (that is, non-Jewish) appearance and being able to speak fluent Polish without an accent, but many times she questioned her decision to live among the Aryans and wanted to stay in the ghetto with her family and friends, even if that was significantly more dangerous.

I do wish Zar had written more about her emotions during this time, and revealed some details of her prewar life. When the book starts, she's nineteen, the war is in full swing and she's about to leave the ghetto, and that's all we know. There's not much about her post-war life either; just one short chapter of the immediate days after liberation and then a two-page epilogue about her marriage and journey to the US. I would like to know if she stayed in touch with the SS officer's wife who had been so kind to her, and their child, whose nanny she was, whom she had great affection for.

In the Mouth of the Wolf doesn't especially stand out in the genre of Holocaust memoirs, but I can recommend it -- you could do a lot worse.

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