Sheva''s Promise: A Chronicle of Escape From a Nazi Ghetto
ISBN: 9780815652175
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Syracuse University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter



In this gripping memoir, Lederman tells her story of survival during one of the most horrific episodes in history. Beginning with Lederman as a young girl in Poland in 1941, Sheva's Promise traces her experience in a Nazi ghetto with her mother and sister. Resolved that she must avoid the detention camp to help her family, Lederman obtains a false birth certificate and escapes the ghetto. Through the courage and humanity of a few individuals, she finds work in a hospital in Germany under an assumed identity. With fierce determination and resourcefulness, Lederman manages to elude Nazi capture and eventually immigrates to the United States with her husband.

Sheva's Promise is not only an invaluable piece of historical record but also the work of a gifted writer whose keen eye for detail and skillful attention to language gives readers an unforgettable story.


Sylvia Lederman worked in the garment industry and spent the rest of her life in Queens, New York. She was known for being a caring and compassionate person who kept ties to her roots in her native Poland by becoming a member of two expatriate societies, the Rohatyn Society and the Lodzier Society, both fellowships of people from Poland. Her life's work was to publish this memoir so the story told within would never be forgotten.
hidden image for function call