It Will Yet Be Heard

"[This] is a tremendous document of the Jewish Holocaust, written from someone who experienced the worst but came out intact, not only physically but also spiritually." -- Isaac Bashevis Singer * winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature *
"This remarkable and moving autobiography, here published for the first time in full in English, gives a vivid and unsparing account of the miraculous survival of a young rabbi, from the oil town of Schodnica, near Drohobych, in Galicia, during the Nazi occupation and his travails in Poland after liberation. It is essential reading for all those interested in the history of the holocaust and of Polish-Jewish relations." -- Antony Polonsky * emeritus professor, Brandeis University and chief historian, Museum of Polish Jews in Warsaw *
"Leon Thorne has given us an important Holocaust memoir. His extensive Rabbinic and secular education allowed him to evaluate the larger historical and ethical aspects of the Jewish tragedy, whereas his uncommon narrative talent emerge in a wide range of fascinating individual stories. Never sentimental or self-pitying, Rabbi Thorne writes as both victim and witness. Of particular significance is the narration of the aftermath of the war. Thorne’s vivid account of the terrifying odyssey from devastated Poland to the American Zone sheds light on this little known chapter in the history of Jewish survivors." -- Rachel F. Brenner * Max and Frieda Weinstein-Bascom Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Wisconsin *
"Leon Thorne’s fascinating and moving memoir—written in part during a year of hiding in a cellar and expanded not long after—recounts the experiences of an individual and several communities with a powerful abundance of detail. It Will Yet Be Heard is a major contribution to studies of the Holocaust and the immediate post-Holocaust era in Poland. Rutgers has done well to restore this document for a new generation of readers." -- Meri-Jane Rochelson * author of Eli's Story: A Twentieth-Century Jewish Life *
"This book is at once a testament to the resurrection of the Holy Remnant in the State of Israel and a summons to its readers to engage in that testimony. Written in the masterful style of an accomplished storyteller, it will be an important addition to any library on the Holocaust and the Jewish people." * Holocaust and Genocide Studies *
"Thorne’s memoir brings a vision of the Holocaust that (to a degree) has been suppressed. Few realize just how personal, local, intimate, and relational the Holocaust was in West Ukraine. Every death was someone’s sister, daughter, cousin, friend, and partner. The theory of Nazi killing as 'cogs in a machine' is disputed in every page....It Will Yet Be Heard adds an essential voice to what is now a pretty crowded genre, but its wisdom warrants remembering: the people involved knew one another and in many cases knew one another very well." * The Polish Review *