In 1936, Lillian Rosengarten and her family fled Nazi Germany for New York. But even there, the legacy of the Nazis’ brutality continued to cast a shadow over her family for many decades. In Survival and Conscience, Rosengarten describes how she faced those challenges within her own life while gaining empathy for the struggles of others, realizing that all forms of extreme nationalism and hatred must be vigorously resisted.
Like many other refugees from Nazism and survivors of the Holocaust, Rosengarten became a strong advocate of Palestinian rights. In 2010, she joined the “Jewish Boat to Gaza,” designed to break Israel’s punishing blockade of the Gaza Strip. Though the Israeli Navy obstructed their humanitarian mission, nothing can stop Lillian Rosengarten’s inspiring story of love, self-discovery, and activism.
What People Are Saying
"A committed human rights activist, poet, writer, psychoanalyst, world traveler, Jew, and pacifist, Lillian writes with passion and detailed honesty. Her memoir is a cry from the heart, a call for the centrality of human rights for all. Her experience with near annihilation as a child, her personal struggles with grief and guilt, and her lifelong search for justice and spiritual peace is both moving and inspiring. Her willingness to bear witness to the 'squalid hell' in Gaza and to get on that boat is a rousing shout to action. Lillian is unafraid to state that for her, the Palestinians are the final victims of the Nazi Holocaust; holding Israel accountable is both an act of desperation and love." Alice Rothchild, author Condition Critical: Life and Death in Israel/Palestine
"Lillian Rosengarten has done something incredible in Survival and Conscience. By ruthlessly examining her family’s 'exodus from Germany' during the Holocaust, she comes to understand the ways that Nazi persecution helped produce mental illness inside her family. But then she breaks down the personal wall of that experience, and by venturing on the Jewish boat to Gaza, explains its connection to Israel’s persecution of the Palestinians. She has produced a brave and wrenching account that is also deeply necessary, as Americans seek to understand how we joined our country’s interests with Israel’s." Philip Weiss, founder and managing editor, Mondoweiss
