Review:
The Golem's Holocaust by Scott Eveloff MD
Scott Eveloff's The Golem's Holocaust is quite probably unlike any account of the Holocaust, Jewish hatred, kabbalistic mysticism, or the ravaging evils of Nazism that you have ever previously encountered.
With a quick pace and adroit narration, Eveloff seeks to show rather than tell.
With surgical precision he shows the horrors of Holocaust deaths without maudlin sentimentality or repugnant gruesomeness. He offers compelling descriptions of: what the concentration/death camps were like; the germination of hopefulness (a fervency comingled with desperation) within the camps; the consistent dastardliness of camp overseers; the insanity of those who cravenly believed in Nazism; and the insane passivity of those who stood by and acquiesced when neighbors were rounded up and marched into oblivion. With nuanced sensitivity, he also shows the complicated calculations for survival enacted by various characters in the camps.
At the heart of Eveloff's tale are two figures: Shayna, an imprisoned girl separated from her family, and the figure of the Golem, the phantasmagorical guardian angel/avenger of Jewish folklore.
Eveloff takes us inside the camps, inside the fears and trepidations of Holocaust victims, inside villages and farm houses in rustic Europe , and, not infrequently, inside the experiences of the keepers of the camps.
But there is something else afoot in Eveloff's "inside" approach. He also takes us inside the Golem.
Eveloff's exploration of the interiority of the Golem is not only engaging; it is frequently mesmerizing. The portrayal of the Golem and the prompting of hopefulness which his mythic status has inspired makes a reader want to believe in the arrival of such a creature/figure. I know I did. And I do even now. Such is the impact of Eveloff's efforts in this his first novelistic treatment of the Holocaust.
Robert Lee Hill
Community Consultant
Minister Emeritus - Community Christian Church