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Life Must Go On
The Remarkable Story of Sol Lurie, the Kovno Ghetto, and the Tragic Fate of Lithuania's Jews
By Bea Lurie and Steven Leonard Jacobs
Published by Pegasus Books
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
The remarkable story of Sol Lurie, a child survivor of six concentration camps during the Holocaust, who continues to be a beacon of hope.
After a bucolic childhood in Kovno, Lithuania, Sol was just eleven when the Nazis invaded and he and his family were forced to move into the Kovno Ghetto. The Kovno Ghetto was one of the only ghettos to later become a concentration camp, and Sol was among just a few Jewish survivors from Kovno.
In this inspiring story of tenacity, character, faith, love, and forgiveness, we follow young Sol through heartbreak and fear, torment and torture. Through Sol's eyes, we learn the history of the communities in Eastern Europe, especially Lithuania, which has long been a gap in the wider history of the Holocaust. Along the way, we meet the righteous few who helped save young Sol's life. After being imprisoned in five other concentration camps for a total of four years, Sol was liberated from Buchenwald on his fifteenth birthday. To this day, he still joyfully celebrates every year the day he was born and liberated.
Despite the horrors of youth, Sol never lost his determination to live life to the fullest. He embarked on a new life in the United States and would thrive as a husband, father, grandfather, business owner, and an inspiration for the thousands who have heard Sol share his incredible story—and the lessons he has to share.
We can all learn from Sol at a time when divisiveness reigns. Despite all that he suffered and all those he lost, Sol’s courage and positive attitude continues to inspire as he actively seeks out and see the good in others. He wholeheartedly believes in bashert, a Yiddish word that means “destiny,” which gave him his “mission to educate others to love, not to hate.” Life Must Go On is a moving and vital new addition to the history of the Holocaust and the chorus of survivor stories that resonate throughout the generations.
After a bucolic childhood in Kovno, Lithuania, Sol was just eleven when the Nazis invaded and he and his family were forced to move into the Kovno Ghetto. The Kovno Ghetto was one of the only ghettos to later become a concentration camp, and Sol was among just a few Jewish survivors from Kovno.
In this inspiring story of tenacity, character, faith, love, and forgiveness, we follow young Sol through heartbreak and fear, torment and torture. Through Sol's eyes, we learn the history of the communities in Eastern Europe, especially Lithuania, which has long been a gap in the wider history of the Holocaust. Along the way, we meet the righteous few who helped save young Sol's life. After being imprisoned in five other concentration camps for a total of four years, Sol was liberated from Buchenwald on his fifteenth birthday. To this day, he still joyfully celebrates every year the day he was born and liberated.
Despite the horrors of youth, Sol never lost his determination to live life to the fullest. He embarked on a new life in the United States and would thrive as a husband, father, grandfather, business owner, and an inspiration for the thousands who have heard Sol share his incredible story—and the lessons he has to share.
We can all learn from Sol at a time when divisiveness reigns. Despite all that he suffered and all those he lost, Sol’s courage and positive attitude continues to inspire as he actively seeks out and see the good in others. He wholeheartedly believes in bashert, a Yiddish word that means “destiny,” which gave him his “mission to educate others to love, not to hate.” Life Must Go On is a moving and vital new addition to the history of the Holocaust and the chorus of survivor stories that resonate throughout the generations.
Product Details
- Publisher: Pegasus Books (June 3, 2025)
- Length: 240 pages
- ISBN13: 9781639369294
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Raves and Reviews
"As the last survivors of the Holocaust depart, their children continue to tell their stories. In this account of one survivor’s life in the vanished world of Lithuanian Jewry, Sol Lurie’s daughter and her collaborator tell of a young boy stripped of his childhood. His personal tale gives hope to modern readers faced with political struggle and an increasing social intolerance. The book presents a readable, capsule history of Jewish life in northern Europe, largely for the purpose of restoring Lithuanian traditions. A moving tale of personal resilience, told through a history of Lithuanian Jewry."
– Kirkus Reviews
“We live in a time of the passing of generations and the receding of memory into the shadows of history. And yet the Event—the Holocaust—casts its shadow over us. Here, in the testimony contained in these pages, we have a convergence of history, memory, and the transmission of memory, for the sake of a future. Sol’s words reach out to us through the words of those who have been entrusted with his testimony, a testimony that transforms all of us into witnesses.”
– David Patterson, University of Texas at Dallas, from the Afterword
“Slaughters, betrayals, broken treaties and broken promises. They're all here, as they are in any account of the Nazi years. Defying them was a young Lithuanian Jew graced with courage, imagination and sometimes pure luck. In the end, Sol Lurie found love, family and the tenacity to tell his story to a world that too often didn't want to hear it. Lurie not only endured. He survived and thrived—a stubborn phoenix rising from the ashes.”
– Arthur J. Magida, author of Two Wheels to Freedom
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