The Risk of Sorrow: Conversations with Holocaust Survivor, Helen Handler info
What can the few remaining survivors of the Holocaust teach us before they are gone? What is it that hasn’t yet been said? A high school teacher is given the opportunity to find out when one such survivor chooses her to preserve her final testament. In The Risk of Sorrow, Valerie Foster, an Irish-Catholic public school teacher, takes us on a compelling journey through her complex relationship with Helen Handler, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz in her eighties, who challenges her to listen as she bares her soul about one of history’s greatest atrocities. More than a Holocaust memoir, The Risk of Sorrow is an intimate conversation between two women of different generations and cultures who together examine deep questions of faith, forgiveness, love and survival, and find a profound friendship in their mutual exploration. In Helen’s words and actions, we discover a defiant public witness and philosopher of the Holocaust with a mission to teach our children values that should never be