Hannah Rochel Verbermacher, a Hasidic holy woman known as the Maiden of Ludmir, was born in early-nineteenth-century Russia and became famous as the only woman in the three-hundred-year history of Hasidism to function as a rebbe - or charismatic leader - in her own right. Nathaniel Deutsch follows the traces left by the Maiden in both history and legend to fully explore her fascinating story for the first time. "The Maiden of Ludmir" offers powerful insights into the Jewish mystical tradition, into the Maiden's place within it, and into the remarkable Jewish community of Ludmir. Her biography ultimately becomes a provocative meditation on the complex relationships between history and memory, Judaism and modernity. History first finds the Maiden in the eastern European town of Ludmir, venerated by her followers as a master of the Kabbalah, teacher, and visionary, and accused by her detractors of being possessed by a dybbuk, or evil spirit. Deutsch traces the Maiden's steps from Ludmir to Ottoman Palestine, where she eventually immigrated and re-established herself as a holy woman. While the Maiden's story - including her adamant refusal to marry - recalls the lives of holy women in other traditions, it also brings to light the largely unwritten history of early-modern Jewish women. To this day, her transgressive behavior, a challenge to traditional Jewish views of gender and sexuality, continues to inspire debate and, sometimes, censorship within the Jewish community.

In 1941, as a Red Army soldier fighting the Nazis on the Belarussian front, Janusz Bardach was arrested, court-martialed, and sentenced to ten years of hard labor. Twenty-two years old, he had committed no crime. He was one of millions swept up in the reign of terror that Stalin perpetrated on his own people. In the critically acclaimed "Man Is Wolf to Man, " Bardach recounted his horrific experiences in the Kolyma labor camps in northeastern Siberia, the deadliest camps in Stalin's gulag system.
In this sequel Bardach picks up the narrative in March 1946, when he was released. He traces his thousand-mile journey from the northeastern Siberian gold mines to Moscow in the period after the war, when the country was still in turmoil. He chronicles his reunion with his brother, a high-ranking diplomat in the Polish embassy in Moscow; his experiences as a medical student in the Stalinist Soviet Union; and his trip back to his hometown, where he confronts the shattering realization of the toll the war has taken, including the deaths of his wife, parents, and sister.
In a trenchant exploration of loss, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and existential loneliness, Bardach plumbs his ordeal with honesty and compassion, affording a literary window into the soul of a Stalinist gulag survivor. "Surviving Freedom" is his moving account of how he rebuilt his life after tremendous hardship and personal loss. It is also a unique portrait of postwar Stalinist Moscow as seen through the eyes of a person who is both an insider and outsider. Bardach's journey from prisoner back to citizen and from labor camp to freedom is an inspiring tale of the universal human story of suffering and recovery.

Between the years1939 and 1940, after Eastern Europe was divided between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, the Polish town in which Janusz Bardach lived came under Soviet rule. After being called to serve military duty, Bardach was assigned to a tank unit. When the tank he was driving overturned, a fellow soldier accused him of provoking the accident, and he was sentenced to 10 years of forced labor in Siberia. This book narrates Bardach's journey through the Soviet Gulag until he reached Siberia and his experiences as lumberjack, miner, and nurse in a labor camp. But this tale is more than just a retelling of a man's sufferings; it is a reflection on the will to survive and on preserving one's humanity when it appears there's none to be found. "Entre 1939 y 1940, tras la division de los territorios del este de Europa entre la Union Sovietica y la Alemania nazi, el pueblo polaco en el que vivia Janusz Bardach quedo bajo poder sovietico. Luego de ser llamado a filas para cumplir con el servicio militar, Bardach se incorporo a una unidad de carros de combate. Cuando el tanque que conducia volco, un companero lo acuso de haber provocado el accidente y fue condenado a diez anos de trabajos forzados en Siberia. Este libro relata el periplo de Bardach por el Gulag sovietico hasta llegar a Somalia y sus experiencias como lenador, minero y enfermero en un campo de trabajo. Pero este relato es mas que la narracion de los sufrimientos de un hombre, es tambien una reflexion sobre la voluntad de supervivencia y sobre como preservar la humanidad cuando no hay rastro de humanidad alrededor. "

From the book: 'The pit I was ordered to dig had the precise dimensions of a casket. The NKVD officer carefully designed it. He measured my size with a stick, made lines on the forest floor, and told me to dig. He wanted to make sure I'd fit well inside'. In 1941 Janusz Bardach's death sentence was commuted to ten years' hard labor and he was sent to Kolyma - the harshest, coldest, and most deadly prison in Joseph Stalin's labor camp system - the Siberia of Siberias. The only English-language memoir since the fall of communism to chronicle the atrocities committed during the Stalinist regime, Bardach's gripping testimony explores the darkest corners of the human condition at the same time that it documents the tyranny of Stalin's reign, equal only to that of Hitler. With breathtaking immediacy, a riveting eye for detail, and a humanity that permeates the events and landscapes he describes, Bardach recounts the extraordinary story of this nearly inconceivable world. The story begins with the Nazi occupation when Bardach, a young Polish Jew inspired by Soviet Communism, crosses the border of Poland to join the ranks of the Red Army. His ideals are quickly shattered when he is arrested, court-martialed, and sentenced to death. How Bardach survives an endless barrage of brutality - from a near-fatal beating to the harsh conditions and slow starvation of the gulag existence - is a testament to human endurance under the most oppressive circumstances. Besides being of great historical significance, Bardach's narrative is a celebration of life and a vital affirmation of what it means to be human.