Eli's Story

Biography of a Jewish doctor who survived and triumphed over the horrors of the Holocaust. Elis Story: A Twentieth-Century Jewish Life is first and foremost a biography. Its subject is Eli G. Rochelson, MD (1907-1984), author Meri-Jane Rochelsons father. At its core is Elis story in his own words, taken from an interview he did with his son, Burt Rochelson, in the mid-1970s. The book tells the story of a man whose life and memory spanned two world wars, several migrations, an educational odyssey, the massive upheaval of the Holocaust, and finally, a frustrating yet ultimately successful effort to restore his professional credentials and identity, as well as reestablish family life. Elis Story contains a mostly chronological narration that embeds the story in the context of further research. It begins with Elis earliest memories of childhood in Kovno and ends with his death, his legacy, and the authors own unanswered questions that are as much a part of Elis story as his own words. The narrative is illuminated and expanded through Elis personal archive of papers, letters, and photographs, as well as research in institutional archives, libraries, and personal interviews. Rochelson covers Elis familys relocation to southern Russia; his education, military service, and first marriage after he returned to Kovno; his and his familys experiences in the Dachau, Stutthof, and Auschwitz concentration campsincluding the deaths of his wife and child; his postwar experience in the Landsberg Displaced Persons (DP) camp, and his immigration to the United States, where he determinedly restored his medical credentials and started a new family. Rochelson recognizes that both the effort of reconstructing events and the reality of having personal accounts that confi rm and also differ from each other in detail, make the process of gap-fi lling itself a kind of fi ction??an attempt to shape the incompleteness that is inherent to the story. An earlier reviewer said of the book, ""Elis Story combines the care of a scholar with the care of a daughter."" Both scholars and general readers interested in Holocaust narratives will be moved by this monograph.