Sign-In
Cart
The Parnas: A Scene from the Holocaust
Paperback
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN13: 9780966491302
Publisher: Paul Dry Books
Published: Mar 1 2000
Pages: 147
Weight: 0.46
Height: 0.46 Width: 5.38 Depth: 8.49
Language: English
The psychiatrist's insight and the storyteller's skill offer an absorbing tale.--Elie Wiesel
A book to read again and again with the same piety with which it has been written. A rare event in publishing: at once an accurate and documented historical study, and in the interpretation made by one of today's greatest psychologists of a strange and symbolic disease.--Primo Levi
The Parnas recreates the final days of Giuseppe Pardo Roques, the lay leader, or parnas, of the Sephardic Jewish community of Pisa, Italy, who was killed in his home by the Nazis in August, 1944. Pardo was a mentor to the author, and, indeed, he was a figure adored and celebrated not only by the Jews of Pisa but by the Christians as well. He was learned and generous, but he was also profoundly phobic. Animals terrified him: so much so that he almost never left his house--except to go to the synagogue--for fear of encountering stray dogs or cats. At the outbreak of World War II, Arieti fled to America where he became a renown psychiatrist. But the parnas, despite a wealth of connections that could have helped him escape, was too phobic to flee Pisa. On the morning of August 1, 1944, Nazi soldiers, searching for Pardo's fabled riches, entered his home. The soldiers found neither gold nor silver, but they did find the parnas, along with six fellow Jews whom he was sheltering and five Christian neighbors. All were murdered. In The Parnas, Arieti imagines what took place in the home, and in the mind, of this devout, kindly, and tormented man in the last days of his life, providing, in the process, an overview of Italian Jewry. Arieti hopes to show that tragic times have a perfume of their own, and smiles of hope, and traces of charm, and offer olive branches and late warnings that may not be too late.
This is one of the most extraordinary stories yet to reach us from the bitter ashes of Nazism...Dr. Arieti weaves his story so beautifully that to unravel it would mean losing its dramatic effect. Suffice it to say that God, Jews, Christians, fascism, cowardice, and bravery are discussed throughout the story in such a way that the reader is at once shaken and enlightened as the plot unfolds. It is like a parable, suffused with the dignity of both the parnas and the author...a work of art.--New York Times Book Review
From the Foreword by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner: In this brief, deceptively simple narrative, Arieti has told the story of Giuseppe Pardo, parnas (lay leader) of his native community of Pisa, and of his death at the hands of the Nazis. Pardo was the leading citizen of a small Jewish community that produced more that its share of distinguished Jews. He was a learned man, familiar with Bible, Talmud, and secular subjects. He was a wealthy man, and charitable to Jew and non-Jew alike. (He ultimately met his death together with six fellow Jews and five gentiles who had sought the protection of his home.) And he was a profoundly neurotic man, who had an irrational fear of animals, especially dogs. When he walked in the streets of Pisa--which was not often because of his fears--he would swing a cane from side to side behind him to drive away the imaginary animals. The distinguished psychiatrist tells of his strange life and equally strange death.
Also in
Historical Figures
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich
Metaxas, Eric
Paperback
The Rise of Thomas Cromwell: Power and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII, 1485-1534
Everett, Michael
Paperback
One Man in: The Explosive Firsthand Account of the Lone Special-Ops Commando Who Fought Off a Major Terrorist Attack in Kenya
Craighead, Christian
Hardcover
The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution
Wegman, Jesse
Hardcover
The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel: Romanovs, Revolutionaries, and the Forgotten Titan Who Fueled the World
Brunt, Douglas
Hardcover
A Librarian's War: The Man Who Fought World War II with Books and Brought the Joy of Reading to Millions
Manning, Molly Guptill
Hardcover
America's Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick
Crawford, Bob
Hardcover
Solo and Together: Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, an Enigmatic Life and Marriage
Hansen, James R.
Hardcover
Operation Sparrow: The Incredible True Story of the Spies Who Tricked Hitler and Won the War
Bell, Jason
Hardcover
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
Kuehn, Christine
Paperback
Thomas Jefferson Survives: American Independence in His Time and Ours
Onuf, Peter S.
Cogliano, Francis D.
Hardcover
Cicero's Tongue: The Life of Rome's Greatest Orator and the End of the Republic
Edwards, Catharine
Hardcover
The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany
Strauss, Gwen
Paperback
The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom
Boom, Corrie Ten
Sherrill, John
Paperback
Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
Bourdain, Anthony
Paperback
A Thousand Shall Fall: The Electrifying Story of a Soldier and His Family Who Dared to Practice Their Faith in Hitler's Germany
Mundy, Susi Hasel
Paperback
The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I
Brunt, Douglas
Paperback
Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain's Queen Without a Crown
Foster, Ann
Hardcover
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson
Curran, Andrew S.
Hardcover
The Forsaken Founder: Gouverneur Morris, the Unsung Patriot Who Wrote the Constitution, Stood Up to Slavery, and Survived the Reign of Terror
Greenberger, Scott S.
Hardcover
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Winchester, Simon
Paperback
The Confessions of Samuel Pepys: Private Revelations from Britain's Most Famed Diarist
de la Bédoyère, Guy
Hardcover
American Prometheus (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture Oppenheimer
Sherwin, Martin J.
Bird, Kai
Paperback
Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High
Beals, Melba Pattillo
Paperback
The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America
Rosen, Jeffrey
Paperback
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
Kiernan, Denise
Paperback
The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It
Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Paperback
The Power Broker (Pulitzer Prize Winner): Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Caro, Robert A.
Hardcover
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
Goodwin, Doris Kearns
Paperback
The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man
Von Drehle, David
Paperback
The First Fascist: The Sensational Life and Dark Legacy of the Marquis de Morès
Luzzatto, Sergio
Hardcover
The Man Behind the Cane: Preston Brooks, Political Violence, and the Road to the Civil War
Quigley, Paul
Hardcover
A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid
Gobodo-Madikizela, Pumla
Paperback
The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War
Donohue, John Chick
Molloy, J. T.
Paperback
Tomboy Bride, 50th Anniversary Edition: One Woman's Personal Account of Life in Mining Camps of the West
Backus, Harriet Fish
Paperback
Master of the Senate (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
Caro, Robert A.
Paperback
Miracles in American History, Volume Two: Amazing Faith That Shaped the Nation: Adapted from William J. Federer's American Minute [With 2 Paperbacks]
Federer, Susie
Federer, William J.
Paperback
The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century
Harrington, Joel F.
Paperback
Women Make History: Fifty-Three Stories of Courage, Strength & Resilience
Spaulding, Sharon
Paperback