By
– June 25, 2012
Say the Name is an extraordinary story told in the voice of a 14-year-old Jewish girl from Kurmina, Czechoslovakia, whose life changed completely in 1939 when the Nazis invaded and she was separated from her family. Throughout the book, we see through her eyes the horrors and atrocities of Nazi rule — deportation, hiding, imprisonment in Ravensbruck, the attempt to survive daily under unimaginable conditions.
The narrative, in prose and poems, speaks in two voices, that of the young girl who watched her family be torn apart and murdered, and the other in the voice of an adult survivor attempting to have a conversation with God, asking where He had been and whether He noticed what was happening during the Nazi invasion, as the world was re-defined and terror ruled. Say the Name is an electrifying book, told from a perspective that we do not ordinarily encounter when reading about and trying to understand the fears and feelings of those who survived the Holocaust.
Barbara S. Cohen is a trial attorney in Los Angeles who specializes in child abuse cases. She is a member of NAMI and a supporter of NARSAD, and is an advocate for those who suffer from mental illness.