Day After Night

Day After Night by Anita Diamant is about women refugees in Israel after the Holocaust. It's a small character study of the various types of people who helped found Israel. One haunting scene toward the beginning comes when new arrivals are taken to the "delousing shed" to shower and have their clothes cleaned. One survivor's eyes blaze with fear, he knows what it means to go to the showers. One of the characters has to convince him that these really are just showers for getting clean. Refugees from the terrors of Nazi oppression want to find safety in Israel and are confronted with imprisonment behind barbed wire in British internment camps. How these women begin the rest of their lives is told in very matter of fact, practical show more language which makes it all the more powerful. It's not as powerful as The Red Tent (will she ever match that?), but shows an aspect of history I knew little about. show less

Anita Diamant has a notable ability to bring a story alive out of the history books, or Bible in the case of "The Red Tent". I had never heard about the internment of Jews by the British, and was immediately intrigued with the story. Diamant's deceptively simple writing style manages to convey deep affect, character development and the emotional energies which work on the psyche of the characters. The four protagonists have all escaped to Palestine, only one from a concentration camp. Their experiences and memories, losses, and survivor guilt work on them in differing ways, all of which are powerful. I think this is a post Holocaust story which is more bearable to read, although clearly shadowed with the horror of Nazi Germany. show more Survival, the drive to be free, the desire to love and be loved are such powerful, vital forces! show less

I learned a great deal in reading “Day after Night”. I had no idea that some of the survivors of the Holocaust had to endure further imprisonment after the end of World War II. Author Anita Diamant vividly brings this truth to light using strong female voices that still haunt me, days after finishing the book.

Many books that I’ve read about World War II take the reader through the war and through the horrors that were part of that dark time in history. But most of those end along with the war, with maybe one final chapter or an afterword to let the reader know a few details of what happened later in the person’s or character’s life.

This book, however, begins after the war, but while memories are still very fresh, while show more survivors are still desperately trying to sort out exactly what happened and what remains, if anything, of their former lives.

Some of them, without documentation or relatives to claim them, were sent to an internment camp off the Mediterranean coast. The conditions were better than that of the concentration camps, but still they were not free. The people, who had seen and endured so much, were still victims.

While certainly not shying away from the horrific realities of the war, Diamant does a masterful job of reminding the reader just what those might mean to the people trying to find a way forward. She uses an actual place and true events, to create very powerful characters. Even a scene that reads very day-to-day at first catches the reader off guard when the true meaning sinks in.

“Leonie and Shayndel were early enough to get their favorite spot in the dining hall, at a table just to the right of the door, where they could watch people come and go. The other girls from their barrack joined them there and, as always, everyone ate a little too much bread a little too quickly.”

Even while immersed in this powerful book, I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that people, who had survived some of the most powerful evil the world has known, were still not free. Barring the fact that few had homes and families to return to, they weren’t allowed to. Think for a moment, of people fresh from death camps, arriving at Atlit:

“All the newcomers stood, huddled together, staring at the biggest structure in Atlit, an imposing wooden barn that the inmates had dubbed “the Delousing Shed,” or just “Delousing.” Prison guards and translators from the Jewish Agency were trying to move them into two lines: men in front of the doorway at the right, women in a queue by a door on the left. Tedi caught the strong, sweat-soaked smell of fear even before she saw the faces fixed in horror at the spectacle of men and women being separated and sent through dim doorways on their way to unseen showers.”

Can you even imagine? I just wanted to go back in time and scream at whoever’s idea this was!

And later, I felt the same fierce delight as Tedi did as an escape from Atlit was planned and carried out. “As the truck started to climb the side of the mountain, Tedi inhaled the tang of pine and the mulch of fallen leaves and a hundred other scents: tree sap and resin, pollen from six kinds of dusty grasses going to seed. The soldiers up front added dark notes of leather, tobacco, onion, whiskey, sweat and gunpowder. It was a wild mixture, the aroma of escape. She caught Leoni’s eye and grinned. “It smells like heaven out here.”

I know that what many readers may take away from “Day After Night” will be the voices of the main characters: Tedi, Leoni, Zorah and Shayndel. As in “The Red Tent”, Diamant does a wonderful job of giving words to the voiceless – in this case, four women from a fading picture in an archive.

But I take away another reminder, all these years later that the grief, pain, fear and despair of those who lived through World War II, did not end when the battlefields fell silent.

“She leaned against the wall and sank slowly into a crouch, her arms folded over her head, as the icy stream stripped away the last of her defenses, motherless, brotherless, and weary to the bone, weeping for the losses she had counted and remembered and for numberless, nameless injuries registered in her flesh.”

No longer imprisoned, but never truly free. show less

Day After Night is an engaging, well-written work of historical fiction, looking at the lives and rescue of the Jewish women who were detained as illegal immigrants after attempting to find new homes in Palestine after WWII. Some were fresh from the death camps of Nazi Europe, others from situations just as dangerous or degrading, yet they found themselves corralled into another prison camp, with more barbed wire and guards - this time British - with freedom tantalisingly close, yet still out of reach.

The losses suffered by these women during the holocaust, and their desire to find a new home, build new lives, sometimes seems to be their only common ground. Diamant wills onto the page four principal, disparate characters in Shayndel, show more Leonie, Tedi and Zorah, each with their own powerful story; each trying to find a path from the past into the future and though Diamant clearly researched her book thoroughly, this is a much a tale of friendship, life, joy and mourning as it is a lesson in the Jewish post-war resettlement in Israel; both moving and fascinating.

It is difficult to say that I ‘enjoyed’ this book – for one thing, the renewed awareness of the imperfect role of the British when it came to war administration was rather uncomfortable – but it is sad and redeeming and human and brave and makes the reader marvel at how life blossomed from the ashes of places like Auschwitz, how these women struggled out from under the enormity of the loss and fear and shame, and faced what was ahead. show less

It is 1945 and the war has just ended. Those released from the concentration camps must now decide what the remainder of their lives, devoid of loved ones and homes, will be. This is the story of some of those displaced women who opt to go to Israel, which is being governed by the British. They find themselves in another camp, and although this one is not the cruel and deadly ilk of the ones they have already known, it is still ringed with barbed wire and it still feels like a prison.

The story centers on four of the women and explores their backstories as well as their experiences in adjusting to a new life in Zion. It is the best Diamant I have found since falling in love with The Red Tent, which I count as her signature work. I did show more feel involved with each of the women, mourn their losses, and care about their futures. It was a quick read with a satisfying ending. What you want most for these women is a chance to live a life of happiness that will negate some of the pain and horror that they have experienced in their young lives. The first step for them is being able to connect with one another and those connections are believable in Diamant’s hands.
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So much Holocaust literature ends with the liberation of the camps; this book begins in Atlit, where Jewish survivors are being held by the British in Palestine. There is a lot of waiting before those in Atlit manage to escape to a kibbutz, and thus the book is more character-driven than plot-driven. There is Polish Zionist Shayndel, who fought in the resistance but lost her brother and parents; French Leonie, who was in Paris during the war, but still a prisoner; Dutch Tedi, who stayed hidden during the war but endured terrible ordeals all the same; and bitter Zorah, gifted with languages, who has turned her back on her former faith. The four become close during their time in Atlit and band together during their escape. An epilogue show more reveals the fate of each after they are sent to other kibbutzim. show less

***potential spoilers***

This novel is set in 1945 Palestine at Atlit,a holding camp for illegal immigrants. The camp, run by the British, is home to about 270 men and women while they await their future and try to recover from their traumatic war experiences.

Diamant, with infinite compassion and writerly insight, tells the stories of four of the women gathered in this place. Shayndel is a Polish Zionist who fought the Germans with a band of partisans. Leonie is a Parisian beauty who evaded round-up by the Germans by working in a brothel. Tedi is Dutch, a tall and lovely blonde who wants only to forget. She survived WWII in hiding. Zorah is a survivor of Auschwitz.

Haunted by unspeakable memories and too many losses to bear, these young show more women, along with a strong and interesting cast of supporting characters, begin to find salvation in the bonds of friendship and shared history, as they confront the challenge of re-creating themselves and discovering a way to live again in a changed world and a new country.

Diamant does well with this story but I did feel she could have given more depth or, I suppose background is the better word, to the four main characters. The very brief summary of their lives at the end of the novel was disappointing, but I recognize anything further would have double the size of the book. I was very engaged with the tale, right from the start and my anticipation grew as the plot progressed; wondering when and how everything was going to unfold. The introduction of a new female detainee, a mentally disturbed German SS, changed the rhythm of the story and led the four friends in a direction unexpected yet also understood.

This is a story of survival, human spirit, human rights and compassion. I would recommend this novel. show less