Jacob G. Rosenberg 2
Author: Jacob G. Rosenberg
Publisher: Brandl & Schlesinger
Place of publication: Blackheath, VIC.
Year of Publication: 2007
Location of Book: Lamm Jewish Library, Melbourne Holocaust Centre, Sydney Jewish Museum and other public libraries.
Cities/town/camps: Poland: Lodz, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Oberwüstegiersdorf concentration camp; Austria: Ebensee concentration camp; Italy: Santa Maria di Bagna DP camp; Australia: Melbourne
Note: those cities/towns/camps underlined are those which are most central to the narrative
Genre: Memoir
Key events/experiences: Lodz ghetto; concentration camp; death march.
Sunrise West is the sequel to Jacob Rosenberg’s first memoir, East of Time, and continues where the previous account left, with the author’s deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau after the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto. It goes on to describe his post-war experiences in a DP camp in Italy and new life in Melbourne.
Pages 1-12 provide acknowledgements and a preface. Pages 13-57 describe the author’s internment in and liberation from the Nazi concentration camp system. Pages 58-120 recount the post-war life in Italy in the Santa Maria DP camp, his marriage to Esther, and emigration to Australia. Pages 121-94 detail their arrival and new life in Melbourne.
After the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto in August 1944, Jacob and his family were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. (For details of his early life and experiences in Lodz see the entry for East of Time). Only Jacob and his sister Pola survived selection, the rest of his family were gassed on arrival. In Auschwitz, Jacob was ‘tasked’ with useless work, carrying stones from left to right. During this dehumanizing ‘work’ he passed by the women’s camp where he saw, Pola. Three days later, he witnessed her lifeless body hanging from the electric fence: Pola committed suicide after learning her daughter had been murdered in the gas chambers.
Jacob remained in Birkenau for two months until he was selected for forced labour and was sent by cattle train to the Oberwüstegiersdorf forced-labour camp (which the author’s calls “Wolfsburg”), a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen. There, he worked as a slave-labourer for three months building roads until, with the impending arrival of the Russian army in January 1945, he was sent on a death march to Ebensee, a sub-camp of Mauthausen, in Austria. After travelling many days in an open wagon, the prisoners were subjected to 12-hour workdays in Ebensee, forced to transport concrete slabs to build underground factories, without adequate food or equipment and subjected to daily beatings and hangings. Finally, the camp was liberated in May 1945 by the American army.
After recovering for a few weeks near Ebensee Jacob made his way to Italy with several fellow survivors, arriving at the Santa Maria di Banga DP camp in Rome where he was supported by the JOINT. During his time in Santa Maria DP camp, Jacob was an active member of the Bund, living in a Bundist commune funded by international Bundists. At a friend’s wedding, he met his future wife Esther, whom he married in January 1946. Jacob secured landing permits to Australia and after long delays left Rome in February 1948, traveled by ship to Melbourne. They were met by a school friend of Jacob and assisted by the Jewish Welfare Society. Jacob secured work in a textile factory and once again became active in the Bundist community, particularly the Kadimah Jewish cultural centre. The narrative ends in December 1953 with the birth of their daughter Marcia, named after Jacob’s mother.
Jacob became a regular contributor to Yiddish newspapers and journals, published in Australia and overseas. He was recognised as an accomplished poet and writer, publishing three volumes of poetry in Yiddish between 1984 and 1992. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Jacob began writing in English, publishing three volumes of poetry and collections of prose and short stories which were followed by his memoirs East of Time (2005) and Sunrise West (2007). His novel The Hollow Tree was published in 2008.
Sunrise West is a sequel to East of Time, and follows the same format as the author’s first memoir, relaying his experiences in short anecdotes. As the author writes, the volume “navigates between two worlds: my wartime and postwar experiences in Europe, and my subsequent new life in Australia”. The “hallmark of the first world is light and darkness; that of the second, hope and restoration”.Sunrise West is a weave of autobiography and imagination in which the author ‘reimagines’ incidents and encounters from his past, with the narrative driven by “remembrance”. Most of the memoir is focused on the author’s post-war existence and his struggles to cope with his grief and devastation. As with East of Time, there is a special focus on his Bundist views, religious struggles and love of the Yiddish language. Some details such as dates and time frames are not specified, but can be found in the author’s testimony recorded by the Shoah Foundation.