Konin

A Quest

by Theo Richmond

Konin, like most Polish towns, had a large Jewish community for centuries before the Holocaust. Theo Richmond is the descendant of Koniners, and this book is a reconstruction of the town's Jewish community, based on the recollections of the few Konin Jews left alive. It is not a book about the author's individual roots, but an evocation of the world Richmond's parents came from, and his efforts to find out about that world. The story of tracking down information about Konin is as important to the story as the portrait of Konin which emerges. Neither history nor memoir, this book is aptly called a quest.

Editions of Konin

	ISBN 9780679758235	Binding/Format Paperback	Publisher Vintage Books	Date 1996	Price $3.95	Good
	ISBN 9780679439691	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Random House Inc	Date 1995	Price $1.22	Used, Very Good

Publisher Notes

In 1939 the Polish town of Konin vanished in the wake of Nazi occupation. Twenty-five years later, Theo Richmond set out to find what he could about that vanished world. He traveled across the United States, Europe, and Israel, tracing survivors and sifting through archives and the stories of those he interviewed. A project he thought would take six months took seven years. Finally he confronted the Konin of today. Interweaving past and present, Konin tells the story of one community--how it began, how it flourished, and how it ended--and in the process re-creates the precariousness, anguish and necessity of human memory."A fascinating memorial to a lost community and the people who lived there."--The New York Times Book Review
"One reads [it] sometimes with a smile...always on the edge of tears--as if it were the most gripping adventure story."--Elie Wiesel, New York Newsday

Media Reviews

"It is in the homely details of their narratives that the rich and complex lives of Jews in pre-1945 Konin come alive....This marvelous book revives, just in time, a way of life that, when another generation has passed, will be truly irretrievable."

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