Shtetl

the life and death of a small town and the world of Polish Jews

Plot

In Shtetl (Yiddish for "small town"), critically-acclaimed author Eva Hoffman brings the lost world of Eastern European Jews back to vivid life, depicting its complex institutions and vibrant culture, its beliefs, social distinctions, and customs. Through the small town of Braƒsk, she looks at the fascinating experiments in multicultural coexistence—still relevant to us today— attempted in the eight centuries of Polish-Jewish history, and describes the forces which influenced Christian villagers' decisions to conceal or betray their Jewish neighbors in the dark period of the Holocaust.