Synopses & Reviews
As a child growing up in Cambodia, Ronnie Yimsut played among the ruins of the Angkor Wat temples, surrounded by a close-knit community. As the Khmer Rouge gained power and began its genocidal reign of terror, his life became a nightmare. In this stunning memoir, Yimsut describes how, in the wake of death and destruction, he decides to live.
Escaping the turmoil of Cambodia, he makes a perilous journey through the jungle into Thailand, only to be sent to a notorious Thai prison. Fortunately, he is able to reach a refugee camp and ultimately migrate to the United States, where he attended the University of Oregon and became an influential leader in the community of Cambodian immigrants. Facing the Khmer Rouge shows Ronnie Yimsutandrsquo;s personal quest to rehabilitate himself, make a new life in America, and then return to Cambodia to help rebuild the land of his birth.
Review
"Lucy Dawidowicz's memoir comprises several books for the price of one: it portrays Jewish Vilna as the plucky American student encountered it in 1938, describes the fate of Jewish cultural treasures as she helped recover them after the War, and exposes the mind and spirit of an intrepid historian-in-the making. Sinkoff's introductory profile of the author is a bonus." Ruth R. Wisse
Review
"Lucy Dawidowicz was an historian of monumental importance, best known for her classic The War Against the Jews. But she was also a vital chronicler of the world of European Jewry before its destruction. Nancy Sinkoff performs a double service by reintroducing a new generation of readers to Dawidowicz's compelling memoir of Vilna on the brink of destruction and, with her superb introduction, rounding out a portrait of the historian as a young woman. By placing Dawidowicz's personal evolution in its historical and cultural context, Sinkoff has herself performed a grand act of historical reclamation." Harvard University
Review
"Lucy Dawidowicz's memoir comprises several books for the price of one: it portrays Jewish Vilna as the plucky American student encountered it in 1938, describes the fate of Jewish cultural treasures as she helped recover them after the War, and exposes the mind and spirit of an intrepid historian-in-the making. Sinkoff's introductory profile of the author is a bonus."Ruth R. Wisse, Harvard University
Synopsis
From that Place and Time is the memoir of Lucy S. Dawidowicz, an American-Jewish historian who set out to study Yiddish language and Jewish history at YIVO, the Jewish Scientific Institute in Vilna, Poland, in 1938. Escaping Poland only days before the Nazi onslaught, she worked in the New York YIVO during the war, and returned to Europe from 1946 to 1947 to aid Jewish displaced persons in Munich and Belsen with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Dawidowicz's memoir not only describes her pre-war year in Jewish Eastern Europe, but also treats the ghostly post-war period, and her role in salvaging what remained of Vilna's scorched Jewish archives and libraries.
Nancy Sinkoff's new introduction explores the historical forces, particularly the dynamic world of secular Yiddish culture, which shaped Dawidowicz's decision to journey to Poland and her reassessment of those forces in the last years of her life.
About the Author
RANACHITH (RONNIE) YIMSUT is an author and activist and has been the subject of independent documentary films and reports by CBS News, NBC News, and PBS, among others. His many written works include Journey to Freedom and In the Shadow of Angkor. A senior landscape architect for the USDA Forest Service, he is also involved in national and international NGOs.
DAVID CHANDLER, Ph.D., author of the book's foreword, is a professor emeritus of history at Monash University in Australia.
DANIEL SAVIN, M.D.,, author of the book's afterword, is an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado Schoold of Medicine.
Table of Contents
Foreword, by David P. Chandler, Ph.D.
Preface: Between Worlds
Acknowledgments: A Book Is Born
Family Tree of Ranachith (andquot;Ronnieandquot;) Yimsut
Chronology
1. Childhood Idyll: Siem Reap
2. Bamboo in the Wind: Regime Change in Siem Reap
3. An Uncivil War: Heavy Shelling in Siem Reap
4. Shocks and Surprises: Angkor Wat and Domdek
5. A Time of Plenty: Back Home in Siem Reap
6. An Era Is Ended: Siem Reap under Siege
7. An Empty Village: Kroby Riel and Siem Reap
8. A Great Leap Backward: Keo Poeur, Kok Poh, and Kork Putrea
9. The Death of Dogs: Tapang
10. Miracle at the Temple: Wat Yieng
11. Dead Weight: Ta Source Hill and the Massacre Site
12. Kill or Be Killed: Korbey Riel, Dorn Swar, and Prey Roniem
13. Barefoot Escape: Srae Noy, Resin Mountain, and the Deep Northern Jungle
14. Alien Worlds: Din Daeng, Sisaketh, Buriram, and Aranya Prathet
15. Urban Jungle: Washington, D.C., Seattle, and Oregon State
16. Back to the Past: Oregon State, Siem Reap, and Phnom Penh
17. Back in Time: Oregon State and Phnom Penh
18. Turning Point: Elections in Phnom Penh
19. Facing the Khmer Rouge: Siem Reap, Ta Source Hill, the Massacre Site, and Pailin
20. Lights: Siem Reap and Phnom Penh
Epilogue
Afterword: The Healing and Reconciling Process, by Daniel Savin, M.D.
Notes
Glossary
Index