There Once Was A World: A 900-Year Chronicle Of The Shetl Of Eishyshok, by Yaffa Eliach

It is easy to tell that this history was written by an archivist and not a historian because of its approach. At 700 pages of main text, filled with photos, and a bit of repetition in a generally chronological discussion that is nonetheless also broken up by themes, this book is a daunting read for many reasons. Its length is sure to scare away most potential readers, and its dry material, difficult structure and vocabulary, and harrowing discussions about the rape and terror and exploitation suffered by the Jews of the small Lithuanian town of Eishyshok will likely deter all but the most determined reader from finishing a book that is dedicated to recording for history the Jewish history of a town that became Jew-free in the postwar period because of the horrors of the Holocaust.

Although this book claims to be a 900-year chronicle, it really focuses mostly on the last 150 to 200 years of history, where documents (including photographs) are most prevalent. This contributes heavily to the dark tone of the book, as it was in that time period that the area discussed faced the crisis of modernity, started losing its population to emigration to Israel and the United States, and had to face an increasingly grim struggle against official and unofficial discrimination that increasingly limited the economic freedoms of the Jewish villagers even as it brought them in closer contact with the modern world and increased their longings to fit in and be accepted by the societies in which they lived, which only served to enmesh them further and further into a trouble that the author discusses in grim and explicit and painful detail, the sort of detail that will likely trigger my own PTSD (not unlike those of many of the survivors of the Shoah discussed here).

In terms of its organization, the chapters mix narrative flow with extensive and even exhausting detail about everything from the political and religious and cultural opinions of just about every single person and family in the shetl of Eishyshok from 1800 to 1945. At times, the book reads like a gossipy Eastern European travelogue, talking about divorces and secret romances and political infighting. Even after surviving World War II, many of those who went to Israel found themselves in more struggle and more division. Those looking for a happy ending or a joyful tale akin to Fiddler On The Roof’s funnier sections will likely be very disappointed [1]. Those looking for gossip, an incredible amount of painful detail about the end of Jewish life in Eastern Europe through what amounts to an extended case study with enough Yiddish in it to make one bilingual in it will find more to please them, at least in part. This book seeks to provide enough to remember the many dead by who were slayed in World War II, often by their neighbors, betrayed at every turn and left a small remnant. Even if it is hard book to read, and enjoy, it certainly is a worthy memorial to a bygone era of Jewish life in Eastern Europe.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/book-review-fiddler-on-the-roof/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/08/02/matchmaker-matchmaker-make-me-a-match/