Surviving the Forest

A WW2 Historical Novel, Based on a True Story of a Jewish Holocaust Survivor

By: Adiva Geffen

Narrated by: Kelly Reynolds

Five shots on Saturday morning changed their fate....

She was a beautiful and happy young woman who lived a fairytale life. Shurka, her beloved husband, and their two small children lived in a pretty house in a village in Poland, surrounded by a little garden with lilies. This was their life and nothing could harm it, or so they thought….

WWII broke out and though the happy family thought the Germans would never reach their idyllic village, they quickly understood they were wrong and their happiness came to a brutal end. The family had to flee their house and find shelter in a neighboring ghetto where they realized that the Gestapo was taking Jews away on trucks every night, and they were never seen again.

The family decided to escape into the deep, dark forest. There, surrounded by animals, they knew that this was their only chance to get away from the real beasts. They had no idea what would await them, but they knew that doing nothing was not an option if they wanted to survive.

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Surviving the Forest

The narration was poorly done and the editing was sloppy. The overall story was informative but not well written.

Poor recording and reader

If you are going to have an ethnic story, you need a reader that knows how to pronounce words common to the dialogue. Static between chapters was annoying and the reader lacked sophistication. All in all the performance detracted from the story.

I thought it ended pretty abruptly.

Not much variation in reader's voice between the characters in the story. not much inflection showing emotion.

Seeing through the eyes of the Jewish community.

It was interesting to " see" through the eyes of the Jewish community what happened to them. While the narration was pleasant, you could often hear static, repeating, page shuffling and voice clearing.

It feels stilted in both the writing and performance.

One thing that seemed odd was the explanation of why some Polish people chose to help the Jews. Money was mentioned, idealism was mentioned, as was symbolism as protest against Hitler’s regime. Glaringly missing was the mention that some people protected the Jews out of love for the Jews and/or honoring the higher law to love and protect God’s people. These did so without pay and at great sacrifice.