A bit late in posting, but the best book I read in March was the most disturbing book I’ve read in a long time: The Ravine by historian Wendy Lower.
As the book’s subtitle (A Family, A Photograph, A Holocaust Massacre Revealed) indicates, the book focuses on the murder of a one family during the Holocaust. But it is not the Holocaust of Western Europe, not the Holocaust of concentration camps. This book focuses on the Holocaust as it occurred in Eastern Europe, where it took on a very different character—graveside massacres instead of formal death camps. The most famous of these massacres occurred at Babi Yar in Ukraine. This book focuses on a smaller massacre, one that may have remained invisible to history were not for a single photograph.
The first ten pages of the book were brutal to read. The focus is entirely on the action in the photograph, which shows the murder of one Jewish Ukrainian family at a ravine and is described in unflinching detail. After that, the book’s focus expands to Lower’s efforts to identify the location, victims, and participants in this murder. Her work is as frustrating as it is rewarding, as she encounters obstacle after obstacle. Even at the end, there is no clean resolution for her or for the reader.
This is not a book that one reads for pleasure. It’s not a book to enjoy. But it is a book that is important and worthwhile. Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) occurs later this month. Reading this book would be a good way to spend that day.