A Priceless record
This is one of the most moving books of any kind that I've ever seen, a priceless visual record of a world that no longer exists, thanks to the Nazis and their brutally efficient Holocaust. It's a world of extreme poverty--but lit from within by the extraordinary faith and devotion of the Jews who inhabited the shtetls of Eastern Europe in the years just before World War II. The photographer Roman Vishniac wandered through these hamlets taking many thousands of photographs (mostly against the inhabitants' wills), only two thousand of which was he able to smuggle out of Europe. Even without our knowledge of what fate awaited these holy innocents, there is a profound melancholy, an aching sorrow in their faces, which must haunt anyone fortunate enough to leaf through these pages. This is a precious--a holy book.