PDF Black Georgetown Remembered: A History of Its Black Community from the Founding of "The Town of George" in 1751 to the Present Day by Kathleen Menzie Lesko; Valerie Babb; Carroll R. Gibbs in History

Description

Annette Libeskind Berkovits thought her attempt to have her father record his life's story failed. But in 2004; three years after her father's death; she was going through his things and found a box of tapes―several years' worth―with his spectacular life; triumphs; and tragedies told one last time in his baritone voice. Nachman Libeskind's remarkable story is an odyssey through crucial events of the twentieth century. With an unshakable will and a few drops of luck; he survives a pre-war Polish prison; witnesses the 1939 Nazi invasion of Lodz and narrowly escapes; is imprisoned in a brutal Soviet gulag where he helps his fellow inmates survive; and upon regaining his freedom treks to the foothills of the Himalayas; where he finds and nearly loses the love of his life. Later; the crushing communist regime and a lingering postwar anti-Semitism in Poland drive Nachman and his young family to Israel; where he faces a new form of discrimination. Then; defiantly; Nachman turns a pocketful of change into a new life in New York City; where a heartbreaking promise leads to his unlikely success as a modernist painter that inspires others to pursue their dreams. With just a box of tapes; Annette Libeskind Berkovits tells more than her father's story: she builds an uncommon family saga and reimagines a turbulent past. In the process she uncovers a stubborn optimism that flourished in the unlikeliest of places.