Jakub's World: A Boy's Story of Loss and Survival in the Holocaust

Alicia Nitecki · Jack Terry

Feb 2012 · State University of New York Press

About this ebook

When German troops come to the small village of BeÂzŒyce, Poland, in 1939, nine-year-old Jakub Szabmacher's world is forever changed. At first the humiliations inflicted by the Germans seem small, but the conditions worsen until eventually Jakub's family and much of his village are murdered, and he is sent to various concentration camps in Poland and Germany, where he struggles to survive the terrible conditions of camp life. Finally liberated in 1945 from the concentration camp in Flossenbürg, Germany, Jakub is befriended by American troops and with their help brought to the United States, where he takes the name Jack Terry. Coauthor Alicia Nitecki, whose grandfather was also imprisoned at Flossenbürg, uses Terry's personal memories to tell young Jakub's story, as well as unpublished memoirs, private letters, and interviews with former inmates of the Flossenbürg concentration camp and the townspeople of BeÂzŒyce and Flossenbürg. Part history, part autobiography, Jakub's World offers an anguished young boy's perspective on the Holocaust.

About the author

Alicia Nitecki is Associate Professor of English at Bentley College. She is the author of Recovered Land and the translator of several works, including We Were in Auschwitz by Janusz Nel Siedlecki, Krystyn Olszewski, and Tadeusz Borowski. Jack Terry is a psychoanalyst living in New York, where he specializes in the treatment of Holocaust survivors.