Ruth Kluger (1931-2020) was a literary scholar, memoirist, and a professor emerita of German at the University of California, Irvine. She previously taught at Princeton University and the University of Virginia, and was a guest professor in Gottingen, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe. As the author of five books of literary criticism, she also studied English literature, obtained a master's degree in 1952, and a PhD in 1967. Dr. Kluger survived internment at Auschwitz, fleeing a death march in 1945, eventually immigrating to New York, and beginning her lifelong work in academia and writing. After an accident-related days-long coma, Dr. Kluger was moved to recall long-repressed memories of the war, which served as the impetus for her memoir, Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered.
"A startling, clear-eyed, and unflinching examination of growing up as a Jewish girl during the Holocaust. . . . A deeply moving and significant work that raises vital questions about cultural representations of the Holocaust and searches for what it means to be a survivor." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Stunning contemplation of human relationships, power, and the creation of history through the prism of one woman's Holocaust survival. . . . Kluger dives in and out of her narrative to consider such topics as her imperfect relationship with her family, her creation of herself as a social being, and the encounters and relationships she's had with Germans since the war. . . . A work of such nuance, intelligence, and force that it leaps the bounds of genre."--Kirkus (starred review) "A stunning autobiography, charting the blurred borders of a child, a daughter, a woman . . . a scholar, and a Jew." --Booklist "An unforgettable example of humanity." --Le Monde "Deftly combining her own compelling narrative with a rigorous commentary . . . adds a spirited and original voice to . . . Holocaust literature." --Library Journal "A book of breathtaking honesty and extraordinary insight." --Los Angeles Times Book Review "One of the ten best books of 2001. . . . Extraordinary. . . . Amazing. . . . Among the reasons that Still Alive is such an important book is its insistence that the full texture of women's existence in the Holocaust be acknowledged, not merely as victims. . . . [Kluger] insists that we look at the Holocaust as honestly as we can, which to her means being unsentimental about the oppressed as well as about their oppressors." --Washington Post Book World "A literary autobiography as extraordinary as it is refined, [Still Alive] rightfully belongs . . . side by side with the works of Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and Imre Kertesz." --L'Unita (Italy)
In the 1950s, when Kluger's children were small and growing up in the U.S., she caught German measles from them. Her family doctor said, "You must have led a sheltered childhood." In reality, she spent her early years in Theresienstadt and Birkenau-Auschwitz. Kluger's memoir which has already become a bestseller in Germany is a startling, clear-eyed and unflinching examination of growing up as a Jewish girl during the Holocaust. Calmly, and chillingly, relating the everyday events of her youth Aryan students making colored paper swastikas and then asking Jewish students to judge them, breaking the law to go to an Aryan movie house to see Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and being challenged by a neighbor Kluger charts how she and her family moved from a middle-class Viennese life to dealing with the constant threat of death in the camps. Kluger's style is wry ("the muse of history has a way of cracking bad jokes at the expense of the Jews"), and she can shock readers with simple, honest admissions, such as her embarrassment, in the 1970s, when her mother asks unanswerable questions of a speaker about the death camps. Kluger, who is now professor emerita at UC-Irvine and has won awards for this memoir as well as her literary criticism, has written a deeply moving and significant work that raises vital questions about cultural representations of the Holocaust (why did the highly praised, socially conscious 1947 film Gentleman's Agreement never mention "the Jewish catastrophe"?) and searches for what it means to be a survivor. Already compared by European critics to the work of Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel, this is an important addition to Jewish, Holocaust and women's studies. (Nov.) Forecast: This is a standout in the crowded field of Holocaust memoirs and should have strong sales. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
A startling, clear-eyed, and unflinching examination of growing up as a Jewish girl during the Holocaust. . . . A deeply moving and significant work that raises vital questions about cultural representations of the Holocaust and searches for what it means to be a survivor. --Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Stunning contemplation of human relationships, power, and the creation of history through the prism of one woman's Holocaust survival. . . . Kluger dives in and out of her narrative to consider such topics as her imperfect relationship with her family, her creation of herself as a social being, and the encounters and relationships she's had with Germans since the war. . . . A work of such nuance, intelligence, and force that it leaps the bounds of genre.--Kirkus (starred review) A stunning autobiography, charting the blurred borders of a child, a daughter, a woman . . . a scholar, and a Jew. --Booklist An unforgettable example of humanity. --Le Monde Deftly combining her own compelling narrative with a rigorous commentary . . . adds a spirited and original voice to . . . Holocaust literature. --Library Journal A book of breathtaking honesty and extraordinary insight. --Los Angeles Times Book Review One of the ten best books of 2001. . . . Extraordinary. . . . Amazing. . . . Among the reasons that Still Alive is such an important book is its insistence that the full texture of women's existence in the Holocaust be acknowledged, not merely as victims. . . . [Kluger] insists that we look at the Holocaust as honestly as we can, which to her means being unsentimental about the oppressed as well as about their oppressors. --Washington Post Book World A literary autobiography as extraordinary as it is refined, [Still Alive] rightfully belongs . . . side by side with the works of Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and Imre Kertesz. --L'Unita (Italy)
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