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Book Review of Mara's Stories: Glimmers in the Darkness

Mara's Stories: Glimmers in the Darkness
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I had to weep at the close of this slim book, which I'm sure was the point of writing it.

It contains 21 brief stories about Jewish faith and bravery, mainly from Hasidic and Talmudic sources, but also stories from the Nazi death camps of the 1940s.

The setting is in Auschwitz, where Mara ("Bitterness" in Hebrew) tells the stories nightly to the children and mothers incarcerated there. The last story, presumably the night before Mara herself is scheduled to be gassed, ends with "Remember, remember!"

A "Notes" section gives the sources of the retellings.