Just as she gave voice to the silent women of the Old Testament in The Red Tent, Anita Diamant creates a cast of breathtakingly vivid characters -- young women who escaped to Israel from Nazi Europe -- in this intensely dramatic novel.
Day After Night is based on the extraordinary true story of the October 1945 rescue of more than two hundred prisoners from the Atlit internment camp, a prison for "illegal" immigrants run by the British military near the Mediterranean coast north of Haifa. The story is told through the eyes of four young women at the camp with profoundly different stories. All of them survived the Holocaust: Shayndel, a Polish Zionist; Leonie, a Parisian beauty; Tedi, a hidden Dutch Jew; and Zorah, a concentration camp survivor. Haunted by unspeakable memories and losses, afraid to begin to hope, Shayndel, Leonie, Tedi, and Zorah find salvation in the bonds of friendship and shared experience even as they confront the challenge of re-creating themselves in a strange new country.
This is an unforgettable story of tragedy and redemption, a novel that reimagines a moment in history with such stunning eloquence that we are haunted and moved by every devastating detail. Day After Night is a triumphant work of fiction.
The story of the Atlit camp is one of many moving stories of the end of WWII and the founding of the Israeli state. The camp currently has a museum, which I was recently fortunate to visit, that tells the tale of some of the people who were detained in the camp. Knowing some of the history, I was excited to get the chance to read this book of historical fiction.
The plot is great - it is the story of four young women (plus a few other minor characters) who came to what was to become Israel and were confined to Atlit detention camp. Although the camp provided very much appreciated food and shelter, it was basically a prison and members of the Palmach, a group that would evolve into the Israeli military, helped the prisoners escape.
Unfortunately, the story was written in too basic of a manner, like it was aimed at middle school readers or that it had been translated by someone who knew few nuances of English. The characters didn't have depth and were almost caricatures. Tough girl, tortured beauty, everyone had their place. The book would have greatly benefitted by being a hundred pages or more longer and fleshing out the characters. As it stands, it would be a good book for younger readers, but was too trite handling of a dynamic subject for me.
I have thought about how to write this review for sometime now. I had maybe to much anticipation for this book. Almost like anticipating Christmas but not getting the presents I thought I might. Writing about this time in history seems like a recipie for a amazing story of survival. These are such stories of the human spirit crushed only to survive and rising above. I have to say that I didn't find that quite in this book.
I couldn't get my heart and mind around these characters. It was hard to keep them straight because of it. Only a difference in backgrounds made alot of these women different. I would expect them to be grounded down, but I felt the book didn't have any sharp edges.
I didn't believe that Anita Diamant developed these characters enough. What made them survivors?? Even if the situation defeats a person...where is the discussion about what keeps these woman going...because they have no choice. Where is the story about the struggle to keep going even if the afterlife of this horror didn't meet expectations.
What is the point to this novel?? I think I missed it somehow. I will go back and read it again. Not liking this book is a wonderment to me. I was expecting a book of survival. These women just seem bored.....it is almost like they woke up from a coma not knowing who they are. I have missed the point to this novel. Hopefully the point of this review won't be missed.
Why did these woman survive?? I think the problem I had with this book wasn't the writing. This book describes what happens to these women, but I didn't get how going through this part of history affect them. How might this experience change their lives?
I missed the point to the book. I just could not find heart with these women, and connect with them. I loved the Red Tent and haven't read anything else by Anita Aiamant. Even thought I shouldn't have had expected similarities to the Red Tent I believe they could have been there.
I will try to read this book again because I feel like I missed the point, and I am left wondering what was the point???
"Day After Night" is set in Palestine in August 1945 and, for most of the book, takes place in a British internment camp for Holocaust survivors. The book focuses on four young women who survived the Nazis. As their friendship grows so does their ability to trust and love again.
I agree with other reviewers that the characters never leap to life, but then Diamant may have done that intentionally since the women she portrays were numbed by the horrors they witnessed and survived. They would have to learn to live again and thus would, in fact, be nearly robotic in the early days of their "freedom." If that was Diamant's intent, then, obviously, she succeeded wonderfully.
Diamant has chosen to set her book about these four young women in the Atlit Internment Camp run by the British and Diamant's camp is based on the real camp by the same name. She clearly shows the British insensitivity to the survivors who lived behind barbed wire and when they arrived in Palestine, they were once again placed behind the barbed wire of Atlit.
If you are at all interested in the aftermath of the Holocaust, you should read this book because it tells the story of a little-known segment of this period.
