Shtetl

InShtetl(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 Brask, she looks at the fascinating experiments in multicultural coexistencestill 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.

Eva Hoffman was born in Cracow, Poland, and emigrated to the United States at the age of thirteen. She is the author of Lost in Translation, Exit into History, After Such Knowledge, and The Secret. She lives in London.