Hiding in the Spotlight: A Musical Prodigy's Story of Survival: 1941-1946
Author | : | |
Rating | : | 4.10 (590 Votes) |
Asin | : | 1605981281 |
Format Type | : | paperback |
Number of Pages | : | 296 Pages |
Publish Date | : | 2015-09-20 |
Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Like a Dickens Novel Came to Life Frank Bellizzi This fine memoir recounts the odyssey of Zhanna Arshanskaya and her sister, Frina. A true labor of love, it was written by Greg Dawson, Zhanna's son, and a long-time columnist for the Orlando Sentinel newspaper.Born in 1927, Zhanna, the author's mother, was the older of two sisters. The girls' parents were Dmitri and Sara Arshansky, non-religious Jews who were raising a young family in Berdyansk, Ukraine, a resort town on the northern coast of the Sea of Avov. Dmi. Who knows about this ? Debra White What a wonderful story ! A hard story, a painful story but Wonderful. I would never have known about this extraordinary woman had it not been for a chance meeting with one of her students. The former student is a 'Storyteller Extraordinaire' and my wife and I were quite sure that he was embellishing and exaggerating the story of Jana Dawson. How wrong we were. Quite a remarkable story of survival (another holocaust terror ), triumph of the human spirit, brute and . Cec said Amazing story, and all true.. I ordered this book after I read a review somewhere and I'm so glad I did! I can truthfully say Zhanna's story has made a huge impact on me. I live in Israel, we study the holocaust, I know survivors. But this book has brought the story of WWII and Germany's determinatin to murder Europe's Jews to me in a way I've never experienced before. It's so very personal. Knowing it's a true story (written by Zhanna's son and peppered with photos)just makes it all the more
He lives with his wife in Orlando. Greg is currently a columnist for The Orlando Sentinel. Greg has been a journalist for over forty years and has worked for a variety of newspapers, including Boston Herald and Indianapolis Star. Greg Dawson is the eldest son of Zhanna Arkashyna.
Zhanna married violist David Dawson, and the couple moved in 1948 to Bloomington, Ind., joining the music faculty at Indiana University. As a child in the Ukraine, Zhanna was offered a scholarship to the Moscow State Conservatory. With italicized selections from his mother's own writing, Dawson skillfully weaves the story of her life and music into a vibrant tapestry, tattered and torn, yet triumphant. From Publishers Weekly In this remarkable recreation of the WWII years, Dawson, a columnist at the Orlando Sentinel, writes about his mother, pianist Zhanna Arkashyna in an account reminiscent of Wladyslaw Szpilman's The Pianist. All rights reserved. To research his mother's homeland,
One lonely evening, the head of a local Nazi battalion hears her play. The extraordinary story of a young girl whose musical genius saves her from the Holocaust. By the age of six, Zhanna had developed a repertoire fellow students twice her age would envy. Zhanna and her family are to be executed alongside thousands of others in the ravines of Drobitsky Yar. In 1941 disaster strikes. Scholarships to the most prestigious conservatories in the Soviet Union soon followedconservatories that had produced legends like Rachmaninoff, Kogan, and Horowitz. 12 black-and-white photographs. The Nazi Army is smashing through the Ukraine en route to Moscow. A few short miles from certain death, her father bribes a nearby guard, and she escapes into the forest with only the clothes on her back, a copy of Chopin’s Fantasy Impromptu in her pocket, and her father’s parting words echoing in her head: “I don’t care what you do, just live.” Adopting a new identity and ever fearful of recognition, Zhanna roamed the ravaged countryside. he is so taken with her exquisite interpretation of Chopin that little Zhanna soon becomes the performing darling of the Nazi forces