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The State of Dark

The State of Dark

Edited by

Author: Judith, Mok
€16,00 EUR
€16,00 EUR
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Like many children of Holocaust survivors, born in a postwar Holland to Jewish parents trying to rebuild their shattered lives, Judith Mok was raised with the emotional trauma of having no extended family. Despite the constant presence of the past in silences and whispered conversations, Judith had little information about the hundreds of her family members who had died in the camps.

While training as a classical singer and performing all over the world, she was continually confronted with the Holocaust. After working with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, DBE, she discovered that the great German soprano had been a long-time member of the Nazi party and mistress of Hans Frank, the ‘Butcher of Poland’, entertaining German troops in Poland while 163 members of Judith’s family were being murdered in Auschwitz and Sobibor. Over 100,000 Jews from Holland were killed in the Nazi camps, including the diarist Anne Frank, who befriended Judith’s aunt Saar in Auschwitz in 1944.

A phone call made from her Dublin home in 2017 leads to Judith’s discovery, in shocking and intimate detail, of the terrible fate of her family. The State of Dark is a moving, beautifully-written memoir of a Second Generation survivor, as the Holocaust continues to be a living presence in European life and culture.

Details

ISBN: 9781843518501

Extent: 176

Published:

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Praise and Reviews

  • ‘This brilliant book is a tapestry, interweaving glowing strands chronicling lives replete with learning and literature and song, with the unbearably dark story of how those lives were brutally ended during the holocaust. The contrast is heartbreaking and it is impeccably conveyed. Mok is an impressive writer. We should be grateful to her for not staying stumm. If you read only one Irish book this year, let it be this superb and unique memoir.’ ÉILÍS NÍ DHUIBHNE, IRISH TIMES

  • ‘Judith Mok’s The State Of Dark is a beautifully fragmented, glimpsed, memoir of her family members and their friends, and of their love of music, literature, dance, art, and each other. A gentle expression of grief and anger, it is a powerful, moving book.’ KEITH RIDGWAY

  • ‘Possibly the most powerful book to be published in Ireland this year … unforgettable’ DERMOT BOLGER, SUNDAY BUSINESS POST

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About the Author

Judith Mok is a Dutch soprano and performer. For the last twenty years, Judith has been based in Ireland, where she has become the country’s leading voice coach, working with classical singers and international pop stars like Grace Jones, Dermot Kennedy and many others. She has published three novels and four collections of poetry. In 2022, Mok was nominated for the Best Writing Award at the New York Festivals Radio Awards.