The University of Wisconsin Press


Fiction / Judaica / Holocaust

 

The Tree of Life: A Trilogy of Life in the Lodz Ghetto
Book Three: The Cattle Cars Are Waiting, 1942–1944
Chava Rosenfarb
Translated from the Yiddish by the author
in collaboration with Goldie Morgentaler


Library of World Fiction



"A work that rises to the heights of the great creations of world literature and towers powerfully over the Jewish literature of the Holocaust."
—Decision of the Jury for the Manger Prize for Yiddish Literature, 1979

The third and final volume in this powerful trilogy, The Cattle Cars Are Waiting follows the tragic fate of the inhabitants of the ghetto. Chava Rosenfarb, herself a survivor of the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen, draws on her own history to create characters who struggle daily to retain a sense of humanity and dignity despite the physical and psychological effects of ghetto life. Although the novel depicts horrendous experiences, the light of faith in the human spirit shines through every page.

Chava Rosenfarb (1923–2011) was a Polish Holocaust survivor who published poetry, prose, and drama in both English and Yiddish. Her English titles include Bociany and Of Lodz and Love. From 1950 until her death she lived in Canada. The Tree of Life trilogy won the international Manger Prize for Yiddish Literature, the John Glassco Prize for Literary Translation, and the Georges Bugnet Award for fiction from the Writers Guild of Alberta.

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The UW Press also publishes:
The Tree of Life, vol. 1 is illustrated with an old photo from the Lodz ghettoThe Tree of Life: A Trilogy of Life in the Lodz Ghetto
Book One: On the Brink of the Precipice, 1939

cover of Rosenfarb's second book in the Tree of Life series has the same sepia photo of a bridge in the Lodz ghetto, but the background color on this book is a fire-like red rising to yellowThe Tree of Life: A Trilogy of Life in the Lodz Ghetto
Book Two: From the Depths I Call You, 1940–1942




cover of The Tree of Life, Book 3, features the same sepia photo of the Ghetto, over a blended background of a wine color.

October 2006

LC: 2004053592 PJ
388 pp.  6 x 9 1/4 map

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Paper $21.95 t
ISBN 978-0-299-22124-9
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The Terrace Books logo is designed in the shape of a book with a Union chair in silhouette on the cover. The words Terrace Books, Madison, Wisconsin appear also.
A trade imprint of the University of Wisconsin Press

Read these fantastic articles by Goldie Morgentaler about writing with her mother, Chava Rosenfarb:
Love & Translation:
Mother and Daughter Became Their Own Literary Enterprise
and My Mother’s Life: How Chava Rosenfarb survived the Lodz ghetto to write a masterpiece about the experience.


This book is published with support from the National Endowment for the Arts



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