Only Hope: A Survivor's Stories of the Holocaust

From the book's introduction:

"The world was not prepared for Auschwitz. It was, in fact, a place unbelievable even for its inmates. No words can adequately describe this weird world – unlike anything the world had ever known. In order to understand its implication, you actually had to be part of it.

I'll have to be autobiographical, but follow me if you will into Auschwitz and spend a day there, and meet some of the people in the nameless mass of bodies. Try, if you will, to feel, even for a moment, that you could have been one of them, that in fact you were one of them."

What would you have done? A simple question asked in countless contexts. Add the word “Auschwitz” and it becomes a searing, soul-searching challenge. In her compelling book, Only Hope, Holocaust survivor Felicia Bornstein Lubliner asks the reader to travel back in time, to follow her into the Nazi death camp, and to wrestle with this question, just as she did when faced with that reality.

— George Conklin, Project Director, Worldwide Faith News, National Council of Churches

The gripping stories in Only Hope: A Survivor’s Stories of the Holocaust, told from the tender, first-person perspective of Felicia Lubliner, will transfix the reader from start to finish. Middle and high school students, as well as adults of all ages, will absorb the impact of the Holocaust in new and unforgettable ways through these remarkable, personal accounts. The legacy of this heroic woman will indeed live on, not only in her words, but in the hearts that are changed by the hope they inspire.

— Kathleen A. Cepelka, Ph.D., Superintendent of Catholic Schools, Archdiocese of Milwaukee

The narrator in these remarkable stories speaks with two voices. At times we hear the voice of the teenager Felicia Bornstein, as she describes her life in the Pabianice Ghetto and her imprisonment in Auschwitz. This is a voice of loss, anger, and immeasurable sadness. And we hear the voice of adult Felicia Bornstein Lubliner, as she looks back on the terrible events of her youth, trying to find meaning in them. Hers is a voice of hope. With both voices, the narrator tells tales of courage and of faith: the courage to bear witness; faith that someone will listen.

— Kenneth Ehrlich, Rabbi and Former Dean, Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion

Through a personal, unique and diverse lens, Felicia Lubliner conveys the raw emotional experience of a young woman trapped in the unimaginable depths of despair, yet through whose written words we find hope. Felicia Lubliner’s Only Hope guides the reader through a Holocaust story that is much deeper than a number—6,000,000—giving us a human touch in the midst of inhumanity.

— Dennis J. Eisner, Senior Rabbi, Peninsula Temple Beth El

These stories vivify the horror of the Holocaust and the redemption of the human will. Felicia Lubliner makes us realize in Only Hopethat the spark of life cannot be extinguished even in the darkest of times.

— Dennis M. Read, Professor Emeritus of English, Denison University