Dobryd was published in Canada in the mid-1970s to a few, very good reviews. But despite high praise, it wasn't a commercial success. Last year, however, Baraka Books brought out a new edition, giving current readers a chance to read one of the best chronicles of life as a civilian in wartime ever written.
The story is simple: After two and a half years hiding outside a small town in Poland, a five-year-old girl, her mother, her aunt, and her cousin along with four other adults, all Jews, are rescued by Russian soldiers as World War II draws to a close.
The child is at first terrified by the reaction of the people in her little world: "Weeping and laughing at the same time, they hugged me and embraced one another. I felt smothered in their arms. These embraces were not the ones I was used to; too tight, too close. I was frightened." And, looking outside the barn for the first time, she says: "A large orange circle covered the sky and coloured the world below. The fields, the animals, the farmhouse, all were illuminated in this strange, intense, blood-like colour.I heard myself scream, again and again."
The scream is the one that she has been prevented from letting out during their long period of hiding. Finally Yuri, the Russian soldier who has been carrying her, calms her. "My new friend.carried me outside. All the while his soft voice reassured me, and the sound of those words made me feel safe.. The fresh air of the summer evening felt soothing against my skin. I looked around me. I was no longer afraid."
But the privations she has suffered do not make an occasion for sorrow and regret. Charney says her book is an attempt to distance herself from the work of other survivors of Nazi oppression like Elie Wiesel and André Schwarz-Bart. "I didn't find my experience in their books, and I didn't want to spend my life following the narrow lane of lamentations," she says.
"I wanted to show that one can live through all that and still go on to be a whole human being. I wanted to have the world as my oyster the way it is for other people, and I wanted to feel free to go on to explore other things." She adds with emphasis: "One should really exalt life." That's why the book begins as it does with the liberation, and why there is so much about pleasure: ice cream, the feel of air on skin, the joy of being able to see further than four walls.
The book is also full of love and luck. Charney was lucky enough to be born to a mother who was strong and clever and had enough resources to pay for help. Then once they were in hiding, the adults around her doted on her, teaching her to read and write, to knit, to sing. Afterwards Yuri became her special friend, and the champion of the family. It is from these repeated experiences of love and attention that Charney has built a sensibility that allows her to say that she had a "happy childhood".
Read it!The first sentence of Ann Charney's Dobryd is chilling: "By the time I was five years old, I had spent half my life hidden away in a barn loft." Those words took my breath away when I first read them many years ago. Yet the novel's unsentimental, clear-eyed vision offers hope that, with luck, the human spirit can blossom under the most dreadful circumstances.
Dobryd was published in Canada in the mid-1970s to a few, very good reviews. But despite high praise, it wasn't a commercial success. Last year, however, Baraka Books brought out a new edition, giving current readers a chance to read one of the best chronicles of life as a civilian in wartime ever written.
The story is simple: After two and a half years hiding outside a small town in Poland, a five-year-old girl, her mother, her aunt, and her cousin along with four other adults, all Jews, are rescued by Russian soldiers as World War II draws to a close.
The child is at first terrified by the reaction of the people in her little world: "Weeping and laughing at the same time, they hugged me and embraced one another. I felt smothered in their arms. These embraces were not the ones I was used to; too tight, too close. I was frightened." And, looking outside the barn for the first time, she says: "A large orange circle covered the sky and coloured the world below. The fields, the animals, the farmhouse, all were illuminated in this strange, intense, blood-like colour.I heard myself scream, again and again."
The scream is the one that she has been prevented from letting out during their long period of hiding. Finally Yuri, the Russian soldier who has been carrying her, calms her. "My new friend.carried me outside. All the while his soft voice reassured me, and the sound of those words made me feel safe.. The fresh air of the summer evening felt soothing against my skin. I looked around me. I was no longer afraid."
But the privations she has suffered do not make an occasion for sorrow and regret. Charney says her book is an attempt to distance herself from the work of other survivors of Nazi oppression like Elie Wiesel and André Schwarz-Bart. "I didn't find my experience in their books, and I didn't want to spend my life following the narrow lane of lamentations," she says.
"I wanted to show that one can live through all that and still go on to be a whole human being. I wanted to have the world as my oyster the way it is for other people, and I wanted to feel free to go on to explore other things." She adds with emphasis: "One should really exalt life." That's why the book begins as it does with the liberation, and why there is so much about pleasure: ice cream, the feel of air on skin, the joy of being able to see further than four walls.
The book is also full of love and luck. Charney was lucky enough to be born to a mother who was strong and clever and had enough resources to pay for help. Then once they were in hiding, the adults around her doted on her, teaching her to read and write, to knit, to sing. Afterwards Yuri became her special friend, and the champion of the family. It is from these repeated experiences of love and attention that Charney has built a sensibility that allows her to say that she had a "happy childhood".
Read it!
