Day After Night: A Novel

I am fascinated by the birth of the nation of Israel. This novel is wonderful I love the characters. Their stories are tragic and captivating. How could people survive what they survived, but they did in this novel and in reality.

Having visited Atlit in Israel myself and knowing the history of this detention camp and the fact that I, too, am a holocaust survivor, Ms. Diamont makes her descriptions of the memories these girls (women) carry with them so vivid, that you feel like you are there sharing their trials and tribulations with them.

An historical novel about a refugee camp in Israel that I did not know was part of the Holocaust. A touching story of resilience and friendship among a group of young women from several different countries.

A very personal account of the aftermath of war and trying to find a place that you can call "Home". Another perspective of the story of WWII that I didn't know. Eye opening and really makes you appreciate people of that generation,.

Wonderful story written by a great writer. Characters fully developed and story very engaging. Could not put it down. Constantly going back to reread sections, each time getting more and more depth from the story.

This book of Anita diament was a little disappointing, only compared to her earlier works of which I have read all past novels. I felt that the characters were not developed enough for you to either love or hate them. Story not as strong as past novels. I will still want to read the next new novel of this author but hope that I come away with a more intense sense of the book

I'm all about the learning of events surrounding this era, especially the time period after the war and the effects on different parts of the the world and the people who lived there. That being said, I felt that Anita really missed the mark. She had an opportunity to enlighten the reader on refugees coming to Isreal to start their own state but instead she embarked on a sappy girl bond story while barely touching events that really mattered in that time.

No character development. Plot had no structure. Very little history about characters or events. Slow to get into. It took me to page 235 of 292 to get into this book. Definitely disappointed as it had real potential.

I am a fan of Anita Diament's books about Jewish life. I've given her wedding book to many couples as they plan their weddings. I wish that I could be as enthusiastic about her fiction. This book was arduous to read. Had it not been assigned for a book group, I never would have finished it. Three others out of a group of five felt the same way. The only one who liked it was the person who selected it. Essentially the language lies on the page and the characters are insufficiently developed. This is not a page turner.

I love Anita Diamant's books. I learn a great deal and her writing is very enjoyable. However, when she described the SS woman in the barracks as a Christian....it was not only unnecessary but very insulting!!!!

No tactful way to say this, but I got bored in the middle. I thought the story was powerful and one can't help but empathize with the characters and what they had to go through as Jews during World War II. It was well written and an interesting story of life for some who came to Israel, still in it's infancy, after the war. But somewhere along the line the narrative got to be repetitive and I longed for a plot that would have followed the characters after they continued their lives in Israel. Too much time in one location.

the store is the only site that I purchase my books. The dealers they work with are top notch and I receive the books promptly and when they say it will be delivered. Could not put this book down, I wanted it to go on into the lives of these woman once they joined the Kibbutz.

This book was a major disappointment for a great admirer of The Red Tent. Childish writing, one "cutesy" name (really, Tedi ?) an obvious hackneyed ending-- not great literature by any stretch. The story of Atlit is a compelling one, and this book almost belittles the experience.

As WWII loomed, and Hitler tightened the noose around the Jews of Europe, Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass," took place throughout Germany on November 9th and 10th, 1938. Almost 30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps, 200 synagogues were destroyed, and 91 Jews were beaten to death.

The British ruled Palestine after WWI and were aware of the importance of Arab oil to successfully fight the coming war. They published a White Paper on May 17, 1939, that reduced Jewish immigration to Palestine to a trickle, severely limiting the number of Jews permitted to enter the country in an effort to pacify the Arab leadership's demand for a halt to Jewish immigration.

Thus, in the late 1930's, when the Jews of Germany and Austria were in great danger, Palestine was closed to them. The rise of the Nazis in Germany in 1933 and the later military conquests by Germany gave Hitler's antisemitic government control over most of the populations of Europe. As the realization grew that the Nazi's were intent on the extermination of European Jews, there was an urgent need for them to emigrate. However, most countries closed their doors to them. Only Palestine held out the hope of new settlement where Jews would be welcome. Or rather, that would be the case if it were not for the British restrictions.

The Jews already living in Palestine were determined that their trapped brethren in Europe who managed to escape the coming conflagration, must be brought to Palestine. Thus, the movement for "illegal immigration," which its proponents preferred to call "clandestine immigration," was launched.

Ships, most of them unseaworthy, were hired and set sail from various European ports toward Palestine. The British, who had at their disposal battleships, radar and airplanes, managed to intercept most of them, and sent their Jewish passengers back to certain death in Europe. From 1934 until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, some 3,000 "illegal immigrants" met their deaths while struggling against the British to enter Palestine. Also, many of the Jews who attempted to immigrate to the Mandatory Palestine during the 1940s were caught after a struggle while arriving by any and every route. They were interned in detention camps - British concentration camps - only differing from the German camps in that the inmates were not starved, gassed or cremated. Over time 50,000 people were imprisoned in these camps during and after WWII, and several thousand children were born there. One such camp was "Atlit," which is the setting for "Day After Night."

The Atlit detention camp, located near Haifa, was constructed by the British Mandate in Palestine, at the end of the 1930s, as a military camp on the Mediterranean coast. It was converted by them between 1939 -1948 to a detention camp for illegals who found themselves, yet again, incarcerated behind barbed wire. The novel takes place over the course of a few months and is based on the true story of the rescue of the inmates from the Atlit camp in October 1945.

The narrative focuses on four Jewish women, all Holocaust survivors, all Atlit inmates, all from extremely different backgrounds, who wait for their release from the camp and the freedom to, hopefully, begin new lives as pioneers on kibbutzim, (collective farms or settlements). Anita Diamant writes, "Not one of the women in Barrack C is twenty-one, but all of them are orphans."

Leonie is a lovely, sophisticated Parisian who was forced into prostitution. She slept with Germans in order to survive. Many of "her men" found their pleasure by causing her physical and emotional pain. The experience has crippled her psychologically. At first, her three new friends at Atlit condemn her and she is told by one, "When they do find out about you, they will shame you in public. They will send you away. Maybe they will even stone you to death, which would be very biblical, don't you think? And so appropriate." Leonie clearly remembers the times when she faced situations when refusal would have meant death. But she is not the only woman in the group who did whatever necessary in order to survive. "Many were reluctant to tell their own stories because all of them began and ended with the same horrible question" 'Why was I spared?'"

Zorah is a survivor of Auschwitz where she lost everyone she loved. She utilized her gift for languages there and added Romanian, German, some Italian and French to her native languages, Yiddish and Hebrew. This unusual linguistic education, learned from fellow inmates, was her method of survival although her life is still so haunted by atrocitites that she has become numb. When Atlit inmates pray and praise god, Zorah silently chants to a "God who brings Nazis to his universe."

Shayndel is a Polish Zionist who fought with the partisans during the war. She is a modest, humble woman, who works with the Palmach, the Jewish military forces, in Atlit. Her job is to find out which Jews, if any, had been Nazi collaborators.

Tedi, a Dutch Jewess, tall and blonde, was once told by a friend in Amsterdam that she was lucky - she looked like a poster child for Hitler Youth. She "passed" as an Arayan until she was captured near the end of the war. Tedi escaped from a boxcar in route to a concentration camp and was found by British soldiers who sent her to a displaced person's center in Landsberg. After more barbed wire, endless barracks and waiting in more lines than she could count, she wound up in Atlit.

These four women's shared horrors surrounding the Holocaust bond them in friendship. They give each other love and support in order to get through each day and try to recover some semblance of "normal" life.

Obviously "Day After Night" is not a pleasant read, although the novel is well written and the characters are extremely life like. I think the author's point of view is extremely optimisic. I was haunted by the story long after finishing it. One of the consequences the survivors face, besides their wartime experience and survivors guilt, is the challenge of building new lives. Many are just not up to it. The pain they live with saps their energy and will to live. However, the four friends, Leonie, Zorah, Shayndel, and Tedi seem to have hope for a future and the strength to overcome their suffering and fight for redemption.
JANA

I enjoyed this book. Other reviewers have called it "depressing" but I can't say I agree. It's a story about how those who escaped the Holocaust managed to survive up until their arrival in Palestine, to many the Promised Land, it's about the guilt they have internalized for having survived, the new friendships they form, and to what degree they are able to put the past behind them and look forward to a brighter future. In that sense, it is a story filled with hope, at least for me.

In this case, the horrors of war are only seen through a lens once removed, where snippets of wartime experiences are brought to light through the reflections of a group of women who are refugees in a British camp in Palestine right after World War II. There is Shayndel who escaped the Nazis by joining a group of Polish partisans, there is Tedi, a Dutch woman who managed to escape from a train bound for Bergen-Belsen, there is Zorah, who wasn't so lucky and barely survived her time in a concentration camp, and there is Leonie, a beautiful French girl who is deeply ashamed about her story of survival. They are all in Palestine awaiting their release so they can start new lives, but for one reason or another the British authorities continue to detain them and rob them of the chance to move on.

While most everyone in Atlit, the camp, is frustrated to still live behind a fence now that the war is over, you also get a sense of the pioneer spirit these Zionists have brought with them, and how they were trying to fit in with the Jews already in Palestine via earlier migrations. They are struggling to learn Hebrew, a brand-new language for most of them, and they don't always know who to trust. A good part of the story describes everyday life in the camp and I think this is accomplished very well, describing the work of the nurses, the kitchen staff, even the rite of passage of new arrivals through delousing.

If there is one aspect of the book I found wanting, it is the background stories of the main characters. As I said, these are revealed only piece by piece throughout the book, and I found myself wishing for much more. Their pasts in a way seem so much more compelling than the rather ordinary life in the refugee camp. However, perhaps this is also a strength of the book. Perhaps having only these meager snippets prompts us, the readers, to round out the stories on our own. Perhaps not knowing enough about the past makes us think about it more.

I have spent much of 2009 reading excellent novels that relate different perspectives of the horror that was WW II and the effects of the Holocaust on people from different countries. In Sarah's Key, I read what happened at the Vélodrome d'Hiver in France, in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Random House Reader's Circle), I discovered what happened during the war on an island I'd never heard of, in Skeletons at the Feast: A Novel, I accompanied a family fleeing westward ahead of the advancing Russians, in Those Who Save Us, I read what desperate men and women did in occupied Germany. This novel is another wonderful testament to the strength of the human spirit in the face of unspeakable guilt -- the guilt of being a survivor of the ravages of the Nazis and the Final Solution.

This story takes place in Atlit -- the internment camp south of Hafia, Israel, after the war is over when thousands of Jews escaped Europe for their promised land, only to be imprisoned and held by the British military instead of being allowed to join the kibbutzes established there. Four remarkable young women from different backgrounds meet there and attempt to adjust to life and to deal with the consequences of what they did to survive the fates that claimed the lives of their friends and families.

I loved the women -- Shayndel, a Polish Zionist with a heroine's reputation; Zorah, the concentration camp survivor who hides the tattoo on her arm; Tedi, a Dutch girl who escaped most of the ravages of war by being hidden; and Leonie, from France, who avoided the roundup due to her looks and her wartime occupation. The experiences that the girls had during the war are revealed in vignettes as we get to know each one and her secrets very slowly as they suffer a day to day existence in the camp. The jobs they do, the contacts they have, and the relationships that manage to thrive despite the collective horror are heartwarming and inspiring. Both realistic and desperately hopeful, the girls do whatever they can to find some explanation or reason why they did not perish.

Anita Diamant is a superb writer whose prose rings true in every sense. This is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it.

After World War II, many of Europe's Jews found themselves with nowhere to go: their homes confiscated, their family and friends dead or scattered. With nothing remaining for them in the world they'd always known, thousands turned to their ancestral homeland of Israel as their last hope. The land was under British control at the time, and although Britain had expressed the intention decades earlier of turning the land over to the Jews, strict immigration quotas were still in place in 1945. Those who arrived in Palestine illegally were often greeted with something less than a warm welcome, herded into detention camps like Atlit. Newcomers were relieved to discover that at least they would be treated like human beings in this place of barracks and barbed wire - they had plenty of food, pillows, showers (the real kind) - and yet as long as they were there, they were prisoners, existing uneasily between the horrors of the past and the hopes and uncertainties of the future. In "Day After Night," Anita Diamant imagines the lives of four female detainees at Atlit, young women barely out of girlhood, yet already survivors of enough suffering for a dozen ordinary lifetimes.

Leonie Dubinski, the youngest of the four, spent the war years in Paris. She was never sent to the camps, never in hiding, never without a roof over her head or enough to eat, but the shameful memory of what she had to do to survive has followed her to Palestine. Volunteering at the infirmary is a strategic move, at first, calculated to bring her discreet access to the sensitive medical care she needs, but as the weeks turn into months, Leonie's strong stomach and gentle disposition make her a real asset. The nurse in charge has little patience for those whose sickness is not of the body but of the mind, but Leonie understands psychological trauma; only the careful balance in which she maintains her own painful secret enables her to keep her sanity.

On the boat that carried her to Palestine, Leonie bonded with Shayndel Eskenazi, whose courage and strength contrasted much with her own fragility. Unlike Leonie, Shayndel had always dreamed of making this journey one day. Growing up in Poland, she and her brother had both been involved in the Zionist movement: studying Hebrew, singing patriotic hymns, learning the skills they knew would be essential one day in a new land. Now that she's here, however, Shayndel isn't quite sure what to do with herself. Her brother and her closest Zionist comrades gave their lives for the cause, but somehow she survived. When the Israeli freedom fighters who have infiltrated the camp learn of Shayndel's experience, she's quickly drawn into their plans.

Tedi Pastore spent most of the war in hiding. After the war, she had a chance to return to Amsterdam with a friend of her father's, but she chose to come to Palestine instead. She doesn't want to go home, to remember her parents and sister, a home and a way of life forever lost. Tedi's strategy is simple: she refuses to remember. She doesn't think about her life before the war, or what happened during. When she gets out of Atlit, she intends to forget all about this transitional time in her life as well. She chooses to focus on the good things: her body's improving health and vitality now that she's getting enough to eat, her newly awakened - and strangely keen - sense of smell. Tedi finds she can smell the emotions of her fellow survivors: fear, guilt, and shame. Now and then, however, she picks up a whiff of lavender: the fragrance of hope.

In contrast to Tedi, Auschwitz survivor Zorah Weitz thrives on the bitterness of memory. The smartest of Diamant's four heroines, Zorah has a special talent for picking up languages, but she spends most of her time alone, shunning overtures of friendship, speaking only in brief cynical outbursts. Her only pleasure in life is getting her hands on an occasional cigarette. Despite her prickly manner, however, Zorah isn't so completely hardened as she would like to think, and a most unexpected friendship threatens to crack her sturdy defenses.

Despite their differences, these four women will come to confide in each other, to care about each other, to rely upon each other. Although their friendship is the heart and soul of this novel, Diamant fills out her narrative with fascinating peripheral characters, many of whom are portrayed with more empathy and nuance than the protagonists of any number of lesser novels. This isn't a particularly long book, and there's a lot going on, so the main characters are a bit less developed than I might have liked, but - whether this is actually what Diamant intended or merely a fortuitous twist of circumstance - this actually serves to reinforce the feel of the friendship between the characters. I spent a lot of time in the hospital when I was around the age of the main characters in "Day After Night," and I often connected with other patients on the same level that Diamant presents her characters: I knew them intimately, but did not know them well.

"Day After Night" is a novel that should appeal to a wide readership. Fans of historical fiction, especially those with a special interest in the Holocaust and/or the founding of the modern state of Israel, will enjoy it, as will anyone with an interest in the modern Jewish experience, or the consequences of war, or the lingering effects of trauma. It could even fall into the diverse-characters-bonding-over-shared-activity subgenre of women's fiction, though with a darker and more bittersweet tone than most. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys an unflinching but redemptive look into the darker corners of our recent history.

I have to agree with the synopsis' final statement, DAY AFTER NIGHT is a triumphant work of fiction. How else could you describe the fullness in your heart after reading Anita Diamant's phenomenal description of these young women's will to live?

A dramatic account of what a handful of survivors of Nazi persecution faced after the liberation of the concentration camps which held them prisoners, this novel is written with care and respect for the millions of souls who lost their lives and those who fought to rise again from the ashes.

Each of the four young women described in this account have different stories, each survived the Holocaust, and their newest status of illegal immigrants in a British military compound weighs heavily on their heart.
Just the mere mention of the barbed wire surrounding the camp allows you a glimpse of what each must have felt.

For many relocated survivors, there was the realization that no one cared to know what happened to them, what they had lost, what they had suffered and were mourning. There were also those who avoided talks of roundups, forced marches, mass graves and death camps. Those who were lucky enough to arrive first or those who lived already in Palestine were always thirsty for news of their hometowns or relatives. When you had nothing to share, you were asked if you were ready to throw yourself body and soul into Avodah Ivrit, the work of building up the land.

Deprived of everything, each young woman shows in this narrative their tenacity to forget the past and make a new future for themselves. The fact that Anita Diamant wove in it the 1945 true story of how more than 200 prisoners escaped from the relocation camp makes it that much more special.

A triumphant account of surviving the darkest hours of WW 2, this is a novel about hope and living in its full measure. Well worth reading!!

5 Stars!!

NOTE: This was a library loan and reflects only my opinion.

As WWII loomed, and Hitler continued to tighten the noose around the Jews of Europe, Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” took place throughout Germany on November 9th and 10th, 1938. Almost 30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps, 200 synagogues were destroyed, and 91 Jews were beaten to death.

The British, which ruled Palestine after WWI, were aware of the importance of Arab oil to successfully fight the coming war. They published a White Paper on May 17, 1939, that reduced Jewish immigration to Palestine to a trickle, severely limiting the number of Jews permitted to enter the country in an effort to pacify the Arab leadership’s demand for a halt to Jewish immigration.

Thus, in the late 1930′s, when the Jews of Germany and Austria were in great danger, Palestine was closed to them. The rise of the Nazis in Germany in 1933 and the later military conquests by Germany gave Hitler’s antisemitic government control over most of the populations of Europe. As the realization grew that the Nazi’s were intent on the extermination of European Jews, there was an urgent need for them to emigrate. However, most countries closed their doors to immigration. Only Palestine held out the hope of new settlement where Jews would be welcome. Or rather, that would be the case if it were not for the British restrictions.

The Jews already living in Palestine were determined that their trapped brethren in Europe who managed to escape the coming conflagration, must be brought to Palestine. Thus, the movement for “illegal immigration,” which its proponents preferred to call “clandestine immigration,” was launched.

Ships, most of them unseaworthy, were hired and set sail from various European ports toward Palestine. The British, who had at their disposal battleships, radar and airplanes, managed to intercept most of them, and sent their Jewish passengers back to certain death in Europe. From 1934 until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, some 3,000 “illegal immigrants” met their deaths while struggling against the British to enter Palestine. Also, many of the Jews who attempted to immigrate to the Mandatory Palestine during the 1940s were caught after a struggle while arriving by any and every route. They were interned in detention camps – British concentration camps – only differing from the German camps in that the inmates were not starved, gassed or cremated. Over time 50,000 people were imprisoned in these camps during and after WWII, and several thousand children were born there. One such camp was “Atlit,” which is the setting for Day After Night.

The Atlit detention camp, located near Haifa, was constructed by the British Mandate in Palestine, at the end of the 1930s, as a military camp on the Mediterranean coast. It was converted by them between 1939 -1948 to a detention camp for illegals who found themselves, yet again, incarcerated behind barbed wire. The novel takes place over the course of a few months and is based on the true story of the rescue of the inmates from the Atlit camp in October 1945.

The narrative focuses on four Jewish women, all Holocaust survivors, all Atlit inmates, all from extremely different backgrounds, who wait for their release from the camp and the freedom to, hopefully, begin new lives as pioneers on kibbutzim, (collective farms or settlements). Anita Diamant writes, “Not one of the women in Barrack C is twenty-one, but all of them are orphans.”

Leonie is a lovely, sophisticated Parisian who was forced into prostitution. She slept with Germans in order to survive. Many of “her men” found their pleasure by causing her physical and emotional pain. The experience has crippled her psychologically. At first, her three new friends at Atlit condemn her and she is told by one, “When they do find out about you, they will shame you in public. They will send you away. Maybe they will even stone you to death, which would be very biblical, don’t you think? And so appropriate.” Leonie clearly remembers the times when she faced situations when refusal would have meant death. But she is not the only woman in the group who did whatever necessary in order to survive. “Many were reluctant to tell their own stories because all of them began and ended with the same horrible question” ‘Why was I spared?’”

Zorah is a survivor of Auschwitz where she lost everyone she loved. She utilized her gift for languages there and added Romanian, German, some Italian and French to her native languages, Yiddish and Hebrew. This unusual linguistic education, learned from fellow inmates, was her method of survival although her life is still so haunted by atrocities that she has become numb. When Atlit inmates pray and praise god, Zorah silently chants to a “God who brings Nazis to his universe.”

Shayndel is a Polish Zionist who fought with the partisans during the war. She is a modest, humble woman, who works with the Palmach, the Jewish military forces, in Atlit. Her job is to find out which Jews, if any, had been Nazi collaborators.

Tedi, a Dutch Jewess, tall and blonde, was once told by a friend in Amsterdam that she was lucky – she looked like a poster child for Hitler Youth. She “passed” as an Arayan until she was captured near the end of the war. Tedi escaped from a boxcar in route to a concentration camp and was found by British soldiers who sent her to a displaced person’s center in Landsberg. After more barbed wire, endless barracks and waiting in more lines than she could count, she wound up in Atlit.

These four women’s shared horrors surrounding the Holocaust bond them in friendship. They give each other love and support in order to get through each day and try to recover some semblance of “normal” life.

Obviously Day After Night is not a pleasant read, although the novel is well written and the characters are extremely lifelike. I think the author’s point of view is extremely optimistic. I was haunted by the story long after finishing it. One of the consequences the survivors face, besides their wartime experience and survivors guilt, is the challenge of building new lives. Many are just not up to it. The pain they live with saps their energy and will to live. However, the four friends, Leonie, Zorah, Shayndel, and Tedi seem to have hope for a future and the strength to overcome their suffering and fight for redemption.
JANA

I loved Anita Diamant's "The Red Tent" and I've even read some of her non-fiction, so it was a joy to have the opportunity to read her latest novel, "Day After Night." It tells the story of four women (Leonie, Tedi, Shayndel and Zorah) who meet at the Atlit "Illegal" Immigration Camp in British Palestine, just following WWII. Each of the women has a story of the horrors she suffered during the war--and we are given glimpses of their history throughout the novel. I really liked the characters of the four women--and really longed to read more about each of them. I almost felt that I didn't get enough of each individual woman's story in the book. That, and the sudden ending (not wanting to give away too much of the story) with a few lines about what happened to each, are my main complaints. I would have loved to see Ms. Diamant write a sequel (or even four--one for each main character)... to both learn more about her past, and her future after Atlit. I was left hungering for more. I kind of felt that the ending was a cop-out. I wanted to know more about Zorah, Tedi, Shayndel, and Leonie... and Jacob and Esther as well. The little blurb about who Jacob became was not enough in my opinion. The characters were too engrossing to end the book that way.

I appreciated how Ms. Diamant did not portray all of the Arabs or British as "bad guys" or Anti-Semites. I also enjoyed the inclusion of the Iraqi Jews as well. The history of the creation of Israel is a fascinating one--and one that very few Americans know very much about...both from the Israeli and Palestinian/Arab points of view. Ms. Diamant's novel is not only important from the standpoint, but also for reminding people just what hell so many went through during the Holocaust and WWII...and sadly, people continue to go through during the wars of today. Sadly, genocide has continued. Bosnia...200,000 killed. Rwanda, 800,000. Cambodia 2,000,000. Kurds in Iraq...150,000. East Pakistan/Bangladesh... 1,500,000. Women are still raped non-stop or forced into prostitution. War is hell. We should never forget that.

I don`t think the author sufficiently researched her material. I have lived in Atlit and there is an inconsistency in the descriptions of the site. Men and women were strictly segregated and there would have been great difficulties in forming the romantic attachments.
These women had suffered hell in Europe and it is unlikely that after a few months in the prison camp that they would have become plump or rosy. During the escape, the Palmach soldiers had to physically carry children and the frail up the windingrocky tracks of the Carmel Mountain to the kibbutz. It had to be completed at dead of night and in silence so that they would not be spotted by the British. This was not accurately described. I know this is a work of fiction but it belittles the heroics of the rescuers and the prisoners if it is not accurately described.

Based on an actual event that took place  between the Holocaust and the birth of Israel, Day After Night tells the ultimately triumphant story of four young women imprisoned by the British as illegal immigrants in Palestine immediately  after the war. This beautifully written novel is not only inspiring but also extremely informative about the politics and history surrounding the founding of Israel. A timely and thought-provoking look at the immigrant experience.

This was her 4th novel of fiction & her 12th published book. Diamant is most famous for her book, "The Red Tent." This is yet another book she can be proud to have authored. Most of the book takes place in 1945, in the internment camp at Atlit, in post-WWII Palestine. The camp was run by the British Army, at a time when the British still controlled the land that became Israel & were only allowing a trickle of Jews who had survived the horrors of the Holocaust to legally emigrate to Palestine. The people detained at Atlit were caught trying to "illegally" enter the land.
This novel is based upon a true event. The October 1945 rescue of more than 200 detainees in Atlit. Diamant has taken a group of women detainees, all with very different back stories, & written about how they begin to gel as friends & true comrades. They include a heroine of the partisans who tries to downplay her bravery during the war, a non-Jew passing as a Jew to raise the surviving son of the Jewish woman she had loved & worked for in Poland, a Parisian Jewess who survived the war working in a brothel for German soldiers & who desperately wants to keep her background a secret, a young Dutch Jewess who had spend most of the war hidden on a farm while being repeatedly raped by those hiding her, & a concentration camp survivor who had given up all hope.
All of these unlikely friends find each other in the same bunkhouse in this internment camp & help heal each other & keep each other's secrets & help to eventually lead the escape.
This book deals with very heavy issues & Diamant doesn't gloss over anything, but rather than leave the reader with feelings of disgust, it leaves the reader with feelings of hope & triumph.

I am giving this book 4 stars even though I feel it is closer to 3 or 3.5. The story of holocaust survivors should be told. And I think everyone should take a moment to read and hopefully understand and empathize with the people who survived this ordeal. And for that matter experience sorrow for those who didn't.

Although the topic was heavy, I was never weighed down by the subject matter. The author chose, I think, to inject subtle feelings of hope through her protagonists and by the actions of the guards. This "feeling" added to the setting and permeated the air of the DP Camp. The characters in this book were young woman who had suffered grave atrocities but who clung to the possibility of a brighter future.

The history of the DP Camp named Atlis was interesting. The story takes place just after WWII when many Jews were trying to return to their homeland (Palestine / Isreal) and were intercepted and placed in Displaced Person's camps by the British. I love when an author tries to bring to life a controversial and overlooked area of history. I googled many things while reading this story. In that respect this story was very successful.

Even though I sympathized with the woman I could not really get into their heads. There was a slight distance between the characters and the reader. I think if I felt a deeper connection I would have rated this book five stars. Also there were many characters which didn't allow me, the reader, to get to know any one of them too well.

I understand her other book The Red Tent is supposed to be really good. I will be reading that book next.

“The nightmares made their rounds hours ago. The tossing and whimpering are over. Even the insomniacs have settled down. The twenty restless bodies rest, and faces aged by hunger, grief, and doubt relax to reveal the beauty and the pity of their youth. Not one of the women in Barrack C is twenty-one, but all of them are orphans.”

In 1945, over 200 prisoners in an internment camp in Israel were rescued and smuggled into various kibbutzes around the country. The camp was run the British military in the aftermath of World War II, when Jewish immigrants were flooding into Palestine. In Day After Night, Anita Diamant presents a portrait of four women who find themselves trapped behind barbed wire in this land of freedom.

I was intrigued with the premise of this book. This was the first time I had read a work of historical fiction that addressed what happened to Jews after the holocaust. The whole novel takes place in the internment camp, and Diamant doesn’t get inside their heads very much. Together, this made for a slow-moving story without much of a plot. It’s too bad, this subject matter deserved a more fully-developed story.

Anita Diamant's novel "Day After Night" is nothing less than a masterpiece, and I have not enjoyed a book so much in years. "Day After Night" follows the post-Holocaust story of four women who were liberated from Atlit, a British internment camp in Palestine. If for nothing else, this book should be read to learn about "hope."

The four women, Leonie, Tedi, Zorah, and Shayndel, ended up in the internment camp after either surviving concentration camps, working as a prostitute, fighting against the Germans, or fleeing from a cattle car bound for Auschwitz. Each of the women came from different European countries and each of the women ended up in Palestine via different means.

The book follows the women's imprisonment in Atlit during which they met a non-Jewish woman determined to raise the boy who she rescued from the Nazis, a former-SS guard who hid amongst those whose families she formerly tortured and killed, and secret Palmach agents within the camp. Each of the girls used different coping mechanisms to deal with the loss of their family and the brutality that they had endured.

I found the hope of these girls and those of the other Atlit prisoners to be inspiring. I tried to imagine the high holiday singing that Diamant described and the prisoner's escape to the kibbutz through the dark of night.

I enjoyed "Day After Night" much more than "The Red Tent," which I thought compromised historical accuracy for the sake of furthering a feminist agenda. I cannot say enough good things about Diamant's most recent novel and look forward to reading it again.

A beautifully written and hard to put down narrative of four remarkable Jewish girls each of whom survived the Holocaust in Europe in their own way. Imprisoned in Atlit internment camp , near Haifa, in 1945, by the British determined to stop Jewish immigration into the Land of Israel in order to appease Arab opinion and in line with the British government's betrayal of the Jewish national aspirations.
This was Britain's greatest hour of shame and certainly no British citizen today has the right to demonize or try to delegitimize Israel.

Imagine Holocaust survivors being reinterned behind barbed wire in concentration camps to prevent them settling in their own ancient homeland. That's what really happened.
Shayndel, the committed Polish Zionist who fought in the forests of Eastern Europe with partisans, the Blond and tall Tedi, a Dutch Jewess hidden during the war and who later was captured but escaped from the train to Auschwitz, the French beauty Leonie who had to sell her body to survive the Nazi death machine and the Auschwitz survivor Zorah. All these girls carry their own scars and have their own stories, as the narrative further develops in Atlit. Tirzah the cook, has a romantic relationship with a British officer and uses this to help her people.

(Spoiler Warning)
An former SS woman, is discovered hiding among the survivors, and is dealt with by the girls in their own way.
Eventually the four girls and other inmates at Atlit are broken out of the camp by the Palmach, based on true events of the time, in which this heroic rescue operation was undertaken. Future Israeli Yitzhach Rabin was involved in these events, a a Palmach officer.
while we a wealth of holocaust literature, there is much less written about the internment of survivors heading for the Holy Land, after World War II.
An incredibly rewarding read, this tells part of their story.

I just finished this novel and enjoyed it so much! I will say at first I wasn't quite sure if I would like it or not,. Give it a bit of your time and you won't regret it. I learned something new about WWII, and I think that's a feat unto it's self. I cared so much about each of the four main characters, and many of the supporting ones as well. I read other reviews and feel it's unfair to judge this book on others by the same author. It should be judged on it's own merit. It's a special read, and I'm giving thought to who among my friends should be gifted with my copy.

Although I had a bit of a challenge keeping the names of all the characters straight, I enjoyed reading Anita Diamant's Day after Night. The scene is an internment camp, Atlit, where thousands of Jews were held captive by the British military after WWII. While the primary focus is on four extraordinary and different (from each other) young women (Tedi, Leonie, Zorah, and Shayndel), other characters enter their lives and play significant roles. For example, Tirzah is the camp cook and is privy to much useful information because of her relationship with the camp commander.

Every single person in the camp has a unique past and a special dream for the future, and I was both fascinated and impressed as I learned more about this time in history and what these young women and others like them had to suffer. Although quite young, they had already lost family and friends and were determined to make better lives for themselves IF they could only get out of Atlit. While life in Atlit is safe (especially compared to the lives these women had lived before arriving there), it's still an internment camp, and they can't go anywhere. They're trapped as prisoners behind barbed wire.

Much of the novel centers around a plan to escape from Atlit, an event that actually took place. In fact, one of the reasons I found myself drawn to the book is because of the historical fiction aspect. Atlit really existed, and Yitzhak Rabin helped around 200 detainees escape in October of 1945. Whether their names were Zorah or Tedi doesn't matter. The escapees were probably quite similar. Just like the characters in The Red Tent, these people seem real, and Diamant's characterizations made the events come alive for me. Because of the book, I became so interested in this time and place that I did a little background reading and learned that Atlit still exists as a museum; the pictures were haunting.

The title is perfect. After a long night (symbolically speaking) of suffering, loss, grief, and heartache, day follows as the detainees escape to begin their new lives.

When the Jews fled Nazi persecution, some struggled to reach British controlled Palestine. Many of them were incarcerated in camps similar in appearance to the Nazi European camps. One of the camps, Atlit, was a prison for "illegal" immigrants, housing Jews who were the only survivors, those without papers. The British Mandate had issued a White Paper, which severely limited the number of Jews permitted to enter Israel, in an effort to mollify the Arab's demand to halt Jewish immigration.

Atlit proved to a prison of sorts where the "illegal' immigrants could not escape and were governed by the British. Anita Diamant tells us a story of four lost souls, young women who lost their families and their innocence and were held captive at Atlit. We meet Shayndel, a Polish Zionist, Tedi a concealed tall blonde Dutch Jew, Zorah who is haunted by the atrocities of the concentration camps and Leonie, a Parisian beauty who survives only because she can be sexually used and abused by the enemy.

How these young women survived after witnessing and enduring heinous crimes against humanity is all the more shocking because they never speak of their past. If they cling to the horrors, they cannot breathe, suppression of the past and some hope is their only means of moving themselves from day to day. Atlit offers them a little more freedom than the camps but they are not free to leave and have learned to exist on hope. Diamant creates an excellent description of the camp organization and the politics of power.

The survivors' past is horrifying and one wonders about the existence of religion, the futility of kindness and the sheer outright ability of the Germans, Poles and others to exterminate children, women and men. I believe Diamant clarifies that many are capable of torturing others; it is a lack of integrity and conscience. Having read about the Holocaust for years, this story of Atlit was fairly unknown to be and I believe I have been enlightened about the that time in history and it once again serves a sharp reminder of the cruelty of man. Diamant did not paint a pretty picture of the Germans and the British but she especially emphasized the cruelty of the Poles. Not only did they hand the Jews over to the Nazis, but if a Jewish Pole survived the war and returned home, they often beat him to death anyway. Diamant portrays the Jewish and a non-Jewish prisoner with respect, intelligence and great sympathy. She teaches how friendship can survive in the direst of circumstances. She reaches into history and describes the actual planned escape as a daring Israeli military operation freeing hundreds of detainees. A good book but heart breaking.

DAY AFTER NIGHT is based on an actual event that took place in October 1945, months after the end of World War II. Four brave young women --- Holocaust survivors --- are freed along with thousands of others, only to find themselves again behind rolls of razor wire.

Shayndel, a fiery resistance fighter, is a Polish Zionist whose spirit inspires the others. Tedi, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Dutch girl, had hidden out in Holland but lost her home and family in the final bombings. Leonie, a waif-like French orphan, grew up on the streets of Paris and survived the last years of the war in a Parisian bordello that catered to the occupying German forces. Zorah is a concentration camp survivor whose personal horrors have transformed her.

These women are among the thousands of "paperless" Jews --- primarily young adults whose families, personal belongings and official documents no longer exist. Loaded onto cattle cars with other survivors and sent by rail to their new location, then herded directly to the delousing shower stalls, they were confronted by horrifying reminders that they just may have entered a new Hell. The only difference is the surroundings --- they are now on Atlit, a British Army base near Haifa in Palestine. And the armed guards who man the surveillance towers are not Nazis but British soldiers. The survivors are assured that, once cleared, their new lives are in front of them. In most cases, they speak only the languages of their European homelands. Daily lessons in Hebrew --- the tongue of their newly adopted country --- will help them assimilate once they are released. After years of starvation, they learn to eat foods alien to their stomachs and their palates.

Their detention in the camp is the result of something called the Balfour Agreement, established in 1938, setting a cap of 75,000, the number of Jewish immigrants who could settle in Palestine. However, in 1945, when the newly freed Jewish refugees flee to their ancestral land, that number rises to the hundreds of thousands. The British make efforts to relocate those with records and papers, but the unfortunates who had lost everything --- like our heroines --- are in a state of limbo. As days turn to weeks, and weeks turn to months, over 200 detainees still remain.

As a result, a group of young men from a nearby Israeli settlement (or "kibbutz") begin planning to break the prisoners out of the encampment. As the secret planning begins, the four young women, who have formed a growing bond during their months of captivity, are called upon to join with the young men from the surrounding kibbutzim to help rescue the others. Shayndel must draw upon her undercover survival expertise to covertly help plan the escape, while the other three have to call upon skills --- ones that they would prefer to leave behind --- in order to take the lead with the other prisoners.

There has been an ever-growing collection of literature, movies and plays on the subject over the 65 years since the horrors of the Holocaust were uncovered. DAY AFTER NIGHT is one of the finest works honoring those whose lives were marred by the despicable event. And unfortunately, the number of people alive who carry the tattooed numbers from the prison camps is dwindling; with their loss, gone as well will be the first-line witnesses to the greatest crime of the 20th century.

Anita Diamant, who dedicates the book to her grandfather and an uncle who died in the Holocaust, offers homage to the survivors and has added an important piece of historical fiction to that body of work. One hopes that the stories will continue to be written and the memories --- however horrific --- will never be lost.

--- Reviewed by Roz Shea

The history of the creation of Israel is a amazing one, and one that very few Americans know very much about, both from the Israeli and Palestinian Arab points of view. This is the poignant story of four women, Leonie Shayndel, Tedi, and Zorah, who meet at the Atlit Immigration Camp in British Palestine, just following WWII. Together, the women remain strong and support one another, finding spirit in the small gifts of the everyday: fresh fruit, full meals, showers, clothes, pillows and blankets at night, burgeoning romance, scandalous affairs. How these young women survived after witnessing and enduring heinous crimes against humanity is all the more shocking because they never speak of their past. If they cling to the horrors, they cannot breathe, suppression of the past and some hope is their only means of moving themselves from day to day. Anita Diamant creates an excellent description of the camp organization and the politics of power. You gain a deeper respect for this diverse people who suffered and overcame huge adversities in order to put all their life's energies into forming a thriving nation upon a small piece of barren land. Although quite young, they had already lost family and friends and were determined to make better lives for themselves IF they could only get out of Atlit. While life in Atlit is safe, when compared to the lives these women had lived before arriving there, it's still an internment camp, and they can't go anywhere. Based on an actual event, the story centers on several of the detainees, gives insight into what they endured through the war and their means of survival only to find themselves behind barbed wire, once again. This is a heartbreaking, triumphant story that leaves you with a deep sense of awe for the resilience of the human spirit.

"Day After Night" is set in Palestine in August 1945 and, for most of the book, takes place in a British internment camp for Holocaust survivors. The book focuses on four young women who survived the Nazis. As their friendship grows so does their ability to trust and love again.

I agree with other reviewers that the characters never leap to life, but then Diamant may have done that intentionally since the women she portrays were numbed by the horrors they witnessed and survived. They would have to learn to live again and thus would, in fact, be nearly robotic in the early days of their "freedom." If that was Diamant's intent, then, obviously, she succeeded wonderfully.

Diamant has chosen to set her book about these four young women in the Atlit Internment Camp run by the British and Diamant's camp is based on the real camp by the same name. She clearly shows the British insensitivity to the survivors who lived behind barbed wire and when they arrived in Palestine, they were once again placed behind the barbed wire of Atlit.

If you are at all interested in the aftermath of the Holocaust, you should read this book because it tells the story of a little-known segment of this period.

I learned a great deal in reading "Day after Night". I had no idea that some of the survivors of the Holocaust had to endure further imprisonment after the end of World War II. Author Anita Diamant vividly brings this truth to light using strong female voices that still haunt me, days after finishing the book.

Many books that I've read about World War II take the reader through the war and through the horrors that were part of that dark time in history. But most of those end along with the war, with maybe one final chapter or an afterword to let the reader know a few details of what happened later in the person's or character's life.

This book, however, begins after the war, but while memories are still very fresh, while survivors are still desperately trying to sort out exactly what happened and what remains, if anything, of their former lives.

Some of them, without documentation or relatives to claim them, were sent to an internment camp off the Mediterranean coast. The conditions were better than that of the concentration camps, but still they were not free. The people, who had seen and endured so much, were still victims.

While certainly not shying away from the horrific realities of the war, Diamant does a masterful job of reminding the reader just what those might mean to the people trying to find a way forward. She uses an actual place and true events, to create very powerful characters. Even a scene that reads very day-to-day at first catches the reader off guard when the true meaning sinks in.

"Leonie and Shayndel were early enough to get their favorite spot in the dining hall, at a table just to the right of the door, where they could watch people come and go. The other girls from their barrack joined them there and, as always, everyone ate a little too much bread a little too quickly."

Even while immersed in this powerful book, I still couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that people, who had survived some of the most powerful evil the world has known, were still not free. Barring the fact that few had homes and families to return to, they weren't allowed to. Think for a moment, of people fresh from death camps, arriving at Atlit:

"All the newcomers stood, huddled together, staring at the biggest structure in Atlit, an imposing wooden barn that the inmates had dubbed "the Delousing Shed," or just "Delousing." Prison guards and translators from the Jewish Agency were trying to move them into two lines: men in front of the doorway at the right, women in a queue by a door on the left. Tedi caught the strong, sweat-soaked smell of fear even before she saw the faces fixed in horror at the spectacle of men and women being separated and sent through dim doorways on their way to unseen showers."

Can you even imagine? I just wanted to go back in time and scream at whoever's idea this was!
And later, I felt the same fierce delight as Tedi did as an escape from Atlit was planned and carried out. "As the truck started to climb the side of the mountain, Tedi inhaled the tang of pine and the mulch of fallen leaves and a hundred other scents: tree sap and resin, pollen from six kinds of dusty grasses going to seed. The soldiers up front added dark notes of leather, tobacco, onion, whiskey, sweat and gunpowder. It was a wild mixture, the aroma of escape. She caught Leoni's eye and grinned. "It smells like heaven out here."

I know that what many readers may take away from "Day After Night" will be the voices of the main characters: Tedi, Leoni, Zorah and Shayndel. As in "The Red Tent", Diamant does a wonderful job of giving words to the voiceless - in this case, four women from a fading picture in an archive.

But I take away another reminder, all these years later that the grief, pain, fear and despair of those who lived through World War II, did not end when the battlefields fell silent.

"She leaned against the wall and sank slowly into a crouch, her arms folded over her head, as the icy stream stripped away the last of her defenses, motherless, brotherless, and weary to the bone, weeping for the losses she had counted and remembered and for numberless, nameless injuries registered in her flesh."

No longer imprisoned, but never truly free.

At first sad, but ultimately hopeful. Life does go on, whether we want it to or not. We must join with others in making it meaningful, even after great loss.

We think a lot about the many millions who died in the Holocaust, perhaps less often about those who were left standing. They were told they were "lucky" to be alive. But how do you find joy again, or even the desire for joy, after you've lost every person and thing you loved? When you've witnessed and been subjected to incomprehensible atrocities and humiliations? How do you dare to hope and to trust again?

Many of the Jews who survived World War II found themselves entirely alone in the world. Families completely obliterated, no home to return to. Some of them fled to Palestine hoping for a new start far from the scenes of their nightmares. At that time their presence in Palestine was illegal, so they were immediately transported to the British-run Atlit detainment camp. They were well cared for, not abused. But they were still prisoners, not free to move ahead---still "unwelcome."

This story follows a group of young women from all over Europe who are thrown together in the Atlit barracks in 1945. At first they are mistrustful, bitter, and hiding their guilty secrets. Slowly they begin to forge new bonds and rely on each other. As they act on their impulses to nurture others who have suffered, they find they are able to begin healing the broken places within themselves.

The Atlit Detention Centre in 1945 provides the setting for this story of four young Jewish refugees from Europe. Tedi, Zorah, Shayndel and Leonie have each lost their parents in the Holocaust. Their stories are different: Zorah was in a concentration camp, Tedi was hidden in the Dutch countryside, Shayndel fought with the partisans in Poland, while Leonie was forced into prostitution in Paris. Each of these young women is less than 21 years of age.

During the three months these young women are together, they are restlessly waiting to start a new life. This restlessness, a combination of the horrors of the past and hopes for the future, also carries the sense of guilt and unbelief that so many survivors have trying to make sense of why they survived when others did not. The time spent confined in the detention centre enables Tedi, Zorah, Shayndel and Leonie to become close to each other and to share their fears and aspirations.

The story ends essentially when the detainees are rescued from Atlit, poised to live their new lives. There is a short epilogue which sketches their lives after 1945 for which I am grateful. Without that epilogue I would not have been as satisfied with the story. However, this is a snapshot of traumatised young lives at a particular point in time. And, for me, it worked beautifully.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

What I loved about this book: I learnt that when WWII was over, for some Jewish survivors that wanted to move out of Europe and to elect to live in Israel, freedom was still out of reach: for those sent to Atlit Internment camp, Israel. The camp acted as a temporary internment until safe passage could be guaranteed by relatives who had already secured their own freedom. In the meantime, men, women and children had to stay at the camp like prisoners. All this did not make sense and the senselessness was portrayed through various relationships with the guards at the camp. Despite all the confusion that is often associated with post war settlement and displacements of refugees: you can not place judgment on those who had to follow orders, but realize that through that journey: a human connection and decency to each other could still be had on a personal level. Collectively, as a group, the understanding of what happened remained senseless. I think this book portrays this contrast quite beautifully.

The book is centered on four women; whose past experiences in WWII were either explained in a lot of detail or the details were sketchy; but their reaction and interaction with events and people in the camp, respectively, spoke volume of the anger and fear generated from those less transparent experiences. To the author's credit, the holocaust experience has been so well documented, less dwelling on those details was appropriate. Despite their confinement, the transformation and healing of each of the women were forgivingly understated, gently blossoming and even unobservable by their own eyes. In the end, you wished all the luck that could be mustered for them. Ultimately: the captive comment made by one of the women was that they had to move forward to the unknown, not look back. I think they did just that. A brilliant read.

This story is based on real life events, a bit of history of which I wasn't even aware. After World War II, many displaced Jewish people who hoped to relocate to Israel suffered the additional indignity of being labeled an "illegal immigrants" who were forced into internment camps. The four main characters are women with very different backgrounds, the only common factor being that they were Jewish. Shayndel had been a rebel in the resistance movement, but carried the guilt of being the only one of her companions to survive; Tedi escaped from a train only to be brutalized by those who helped hide her from the Germans; Zorah survived the concentration camp determined to forget her old life completely; and beautiful Leonie had her own "perfumed" past to forget. As each woman moves through the camp, their lives are inexorably touched by each other as well as others in the camp - the cook who sleeps with the "enemy" in order to obtain information, but is surprised to learn she has feelings for him; the camp commander who hates the idea of an interment camp; the nurse who disapproves of using sex for spying purposes; and the mother and son who have their own secret to keep. While their external day-to-day lives are relatively uneventful, the reader is caught up in the tension of their internal conflicts, and the events leading to the "resolution" (without giving anything away) are gripping. An excellent novel!

Day after Night is the latest offering from acclaimed author Anita Diamant (The Red Tent). In this novel, Diamant transport the reader to Palestine, 1945. In the wake of Nazi Germany, the remaining Jews of Europe, recently liberated from the death camps, frail, hollow, and raw, are now gathered in Displaced People's Camps (DP's) across Europe. Many of the young people stand at a cross roads. They've lost everything - parents, siblings, friends. They've seen and experienced every imaginable horror, and now they must decide what to do with their lives. Should they return to their homes and communities in Europe? Should they take inspiration from the Zionist camp songs of their younger days and immigrate to Palestine? Should they try to find relatives in America? And ultimately: can they even live in the world, after having been through the camps?

Diamant gives us a peak into the extraordinary lives of five young women - teenage girls, really - each of whom ended up by a twist of fate in Palestine on the eve of Israel's statehood. "Welcome Home!" they are greeted by fellow survivors as they enter the barbed wired gate at Atlit - a prison compound on the Mediterranean coast of Israel, just south of Haifa.

Having arrived in Palestine as a result of different motivations - some Zionist, others desperate, and still others from a sense of having nothing left in Europe, the girls undertake the seemingly insurmountable task of healing. They find themselves alive and alone in a world turned completely upside-down. They've been surviving from day to day for years, and now must adjust once again to a "new normal." Their struggle with this is palpable.

A commonality they share is a great reluctance to remember - to remember the horrors they experienced in the camps... and even more poignant and more painful, to remember what life was like before the camps. Each girl has secrets that cannot be brought into the light of day. Each must battle her inner demons to find peace and self-forgiveness. Each girl finds her healing in different ways and at different times. And despite their tough outward appearances and actions, they support one another.

Within Atlit the detainees break themselves into communities, often by their origins (Romanians, Germans, Hungarians, Poles, etc.). They come together as communities to converse in their native tongues, to ask for information about their neighbors and friends, and pray in familiar tunes. In a particularly moving scene, the entire camp comes together to recite Kaddish at the end of Yom Kippur. So many souls over which to pray...

The number of young people in the camp makes sexual tension inevitable. These are young men and women in their late teens and early twenties. They flirt with each other. They tease one another. At one point a busload of Syrian Jews is brought in to the camp (these young men had been captured by the British crossing the border into Palestine). They are muscle-bound, dark-skinned, black-haired men - very foreign and exotic-looking to the pale, thin European girls witnessing their arrival.

Day after Night "has it all" - a wonderful story-line, based on some of the most important moments in Jewish and Israeli history; empathetic characters; sex; intrigue; a prison break and chase scene; and even a sort of epilogue to address readers' questions about "whatever happened to" so-and-so. It's a beautiful book, from cover-to-cover, full of weepy moments and opportunities to reflect on life and how we play the cards we're dealt.

Day After Night, by Anita Diamant, is a powerful, wonderful book. Following the story of a group of young Jewish women who meet in a British-run internment camp set up in Palestine after WWII, a few years before the State of Israel had become a reality...the story is so strong it kept me turning the pages way late into the night. Like both my mom and my sister, who'd already read it, I was unable to put it down.
I'm a writer myself (Allergy-Free Gardening, etc.) and I certainly do appreciate excellent writing. Day After Night is one of those rare novels, one where you totally care about the characters, where each character comes fully alive as a fellow human being. There were several scenes in this book (and yes, I could see it as a movie, for sure) that were so strong, so heartfelt that I found myself crying as I read them.
Don't let me give the impression though that it is a sad book, as it really is the opposite, a very positive, uplifting book. The last time I read a novel that impressed and touched me so strongly, literally blowing me away several times....was when I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. Each of these fine novels captured history and a small, delicious slice of life in a way that you just don't see very often.
If you want a better rundown of the plot of Day After Night, do read some of the other reviews. I just wanted to weigh in here on this, to encourage others to check it out. 100%, Highly Recommended!

Since my early teenage years when I first read Diary of Anne Frank (Imprint Books) I have read many books on WWII--both fictional and factual. Just in the past year I have read Sarah's Key and Pictures at an Exhibition, but Anita Diamant's latest novel doesn't just retread old ground, but gives us yet another aspect of this historically rich time period. Instead of focusing primarily on characters during the war (as the two other novels I mentioned do), Diamant takes us to Israel as survivors of the Holocaust try to rebuild their lives in a new land. Although her story focuses on "illegal" immigrants held in an internment camp, her narrative slides between characters so that we are given a rich sense of the people who immigrated, their motivations and their very different experiences during the war. If one thing stood out to me above all else about this book, it is Diamant's ability to take the generic idea of "holocaust survivor" and splinter it into the the thousands of stories held within that idea--by exploding that term she is really able to show the texture of the immigrant community in Israel.

My one main criticism would be that I did have a hard time sorting out who was who near the beginning when she flits from one main character to another, but this feeling quickly disappeared as the characters were sketched further and further. Overall I found this book educating, eye-opening, and an enjoyable read.

At first I must admit I was a bit disappointed with this book. I was just not connecting to the 4 women. Then I realized that was the whole point of telling how it was at Atlit a camp for illegal immigrants trying to get to Palestine. These women are so wounded from the war and the terrors they went through they have to keep it locked inside to survive. Taking that into consideration I got swept into the story. I had never read of this camp or circumstance. There is always something new to learn about the Holocaust.

Life in this camp is also shocking at times. The things the women had to do to get what they needed...well I'll say not good. They often had sexually transmitted disease if that tells you anything. Some of the characters that are good down deep had to do bad things to make other good things happen. Sad but true.

These four women are quite brave, they have been through hell, 4 different ways and now here they are again behind barbed wire. It is not as bad a a concentration camp as they have food and are treated better but it is still very much a camp. The Brittish at this time had quota's of how many Jews could go into Palestine and detained any they tried to go without permission.

Most of the book revolves around a big plan to escape the camp, a real event in history! When the hope takes hold that they may get out then you start to hear a bit more about what happened to them during the war. The secret fears each one has that haunts her day and night. Since this is a real event I'm not giving it away to say that after the rescue when they get to Palestine and are safe, much more of their personal accounts of the war experience are shared.

I highly recommend this as yet another part of the big picture of WWII. Anita Diamant is an excellent author as you will see. Press thru the first part when you feel like you are not making the connection to the people, it is written to show a point. By the end you will know them personally.

Day After Night, by Anita Diamant, is a work of fiction, that takes place over the course of just a few months. It is based on a true story of the October 1945 rescue from Atlit, a British run internment camp in Palestine, where people fleeing Europe were held, in case there was a problem with their status.

The story focuses on four women who survived the Holocaust, and are now awaiting their release from Atlit. There is Leonie, a lovely Parisian woman forced into prostitution, Shayndel, a Polish Zionist, Tedi, a hidden Dutch-Jew, and Zorah, a concentration camp survivor. Little by little each of these women share the story of their past experiences. Although each of their stories is very different, they each have had to endure: cruelty, tragedy and loss, and each asks the same haunting question: "Why was I spared"?.

(p. 209) ...."Twenty", Tedi repeated. "Isn't it strange that twenty feels old to me?"

....."That is because we have seen so much death", said Shayndel. "Usually, people are old--fifty or sixty at least before they know more dead people than living ones".

Their shared horrors surrounding the Holocaust, bond them and make them friends. Each in her own way helps the others to focus on their next challenge: starting to live again in a new country. Not a pleasant subject, Day After Night, is a haunting story of suffering, tragedy, hope, and redemption.

RECOMMENDED

I absolutely loved this book. I have not been able to get these fictional characters out of my mind, I could not stop reading it after I started it, and now that I have finished it, I cannot quit thinking about it.
I had read so many mixed reviews, that I was a little late coming to it. I had read that if you loved the Red Tent also by this author, not to read this, you will be disappointed. WRONG! It is nothing like the red tent, but a wonderfully written, engaging book, that tells such an important interesting story. I think Ms. Diamant is a wonderful writer, she is a great story teller, no matter her subject and can convey to the reader so much with just a few words or short sentences. ( I always admired Joyce Carol Oates and Barbara Kingsolver for that as well...what a gift these writers have). Anyway, I really don't know what else to say, except this is a wonderful story, an important story that needs to be told about the beginnings of Israel, and I recommend it highly.

Day After Night is the story of four women imprisoned in Atlit, a British internment camp. After the Jewish people were freed from concentration camps many of them had no home, no place to go so they traveled to Palestine hoping to make a new home. The British considered them illegal immigrants and imprisoned them in Atlit until they could get papers to prove their identity. The story focuses on Zorah, Tedi, Shayndel, and Leonie, each woman's experience during the Holocaust was different and the novel tells their story with some flashbacks into their experiences surviving in a concentration camp and working with others to free fellow Jew.

Like others I had never heard of Atlit and was saddened to think that after all the horrors that they went through these Jewish people were placed in another prison surrounded by barbed wire albeit treated humanely and given a place to sleep and nourishing food. This novel was very enlightening to me and for that reason alone I would recommend it to others. This is a part of history that isn't spoken of but should be known. I only wish the author would have developed her characters more fully so that I could get to know them better and care more about them. But even with this flaw I feel that this is a very good novel and one which I would recommend to others. I have a feeling that this story is going to stay with me for a long time.

I'd venture up to 4.5 but can't quite round it up to 5 stars. In part, this may be because it isn't The Red Tent...another novel by Diamant that is on my all-time favorites list.

This book focuses on a British-run camp in Israel that houses Jewish men and women in the post-WWII era. These people are undocumented immigrants and all are survivors of WWII in Europe. The story focuses on a small group of women brought together in the camp. They have different stories of how they lived through the war (only one was in a concentration camp but all suffered). The camp they are in is a humane place with food, medical care, beds, and such...but being behind fences is itself a trauma to people with these histories. They struggled to get to a rumored promised land and found themselves in another prison. The main characters are very different but they bond and learn to rely on each other to survive this next challenge.

The book is well-written and compelling. This is a piece of history that was new to me and I appreciated the new viewpoint. Each woman has a story of strength that reveals an inner will to survive.

This is a researched novel about real people and events. The story is necessarily filled in with fictionalized details. Nevertheless, I learned about a time I knew very little about, the period immediately after WWII when the British were still in charge in Palestine. It gives us a glimpse into the limbo world of undocumented Jews—often concentration camp survivors, not all of whom were Zionists, some simply having no other place to go —trying to make their way to Israel,.
The story opens the door to that period, raises questions and begs for more information. It is a good introduction to history, but an incomplete attempt at a story. It might make a better movie than a novel, but we do not get to know the characters well enough before it is over. It is still worth reading.

Ms. Diamant has written another very engaging novel. Her writing really pulls you into the place and the people of her novels, and Day After Night is no exception.

The flashbacks of the characters are limited and well-placed in the story; and the reader is exposed to the horrors of surviving the Holocaust Kingdom (to borrow a phrase of Yaffa Eliach) without overdoing the excruciating details. Leaving some things to each reader's imagination is more powerful than laying out everything.

I liked the ending part about finding this photo in the archives of a kibbutz, which also leaves the reader to imagine how one could weave a story around such a photo using known experiences and situations for the unknown women pictured. I also appreciate the small glimpse of how the women might be today or might have lived the rest of their lives.

Using the documentation of the facts surrounding the breakout from the British camp also made for an excellent catalyst for the short friendships. Great use of historic detail in a novel.

Based on a real event, this story takes place in Atlit, a British detention camp in Israel which temporarily housed "illegal immigrants". It is 1945, and holocaust survivors are fleeing to Israel to start a new life. But for the four women who are central to this novel, they first were sent to this place, a place reminiscent of the horrors they had just experienced, but where there was ample food and clothing and hope. They all expect to leave this camp sooner or later and are slowly rebuilding their lives, learning Hebrew, flirting with the men in the camp, and looking forward to a future life in a Kibbutz.

Then, there is a dramatic event. In an act of courage, and with the help of the Israeli Palmach fighters, everyone in the camp escapes. There is a lot of drama here and I just couldn't put the book down during this part of the story. The ending is happy. I'm so glad for that.

The strength of the novel lies in its concept. I shuddered as I read about the lives of these women and the horrors they had experienced. The author tried her best to individualize them but, somehow, they blended together in my mind and I had to keep looking back to associate their names with their back stories. Also, in her desire to tell everyone's story, including that of the British officer who was having a romance with the cook, the Israeli nurse who worked in the infirmary, the Iraqi Jews who seemed different from the Europeans, the Polish servant who rescued a Jewish child and the German woman who had been a concentration camp guard I felt that the story was just a little too rushed an underdeveloped. The book is too short for its subject, a mere 294 pages. I would have preferred it longer.

I enjoyed the book. I read it fast and didn't want to put it down. I learned a lot about a part of history I knew nothing about. And I applaud the author for bringing this story to the world.

I was prepared to love this book, but just didn't. One of the books on my shelf that I want to hold on to is "The Red Tent" by the same author and I usually enjoy WWII/Holocaust books. I can't quite get my mind around all that happened in that time in history and anything I can read that gives me an opportunity to better understand how people treat each other that way and how people can survive the horrors, I usually do. I have recently read "Sarah's Key" and "The Book Thief" both of which I enjoyed immensely. This particular novel just didn't work for me.

The story is set in Palestine right after WWII in a detention camp for Jewish survivors who are attempting to settle in the area after the war. The main characters we met are four women with vastly divergent backgrounds who all end up at the camp due to widely varying circumstances. We meet them after they have arrived at the camp and discover their history over the course of the book. The reader is also given a glimpse into the life in a camp during that time and how people dealt with their psat experiences when in that setting.

To be very honest, the characters fell flat for me. None of them really caught my interest and I found myself putting the book down and hesitant to pick it back up. It took me twice as long to get through it as I normally would a book of this size since I wasn't particularly motivated. There was lots of potential for a truly engrossing story, but it just didn't work for me. None of the characters are fleshed out well and the life at the camp was touched on, but not explored into the depth I would have hoped. I almost think that making the novel significantly longer would have given the author a chance to make it more engaging and readable. I do have to say the best part of the book is the last 75 pages or so - it ended on a much higher note that it began. I felt like I was slogging through the beginning and sailed through the end.

This is not one I will be recommending to friends - the other two books I mentioned were much better in my opinion.

I just feel that this book just isn't up to the usual standard of Anita Diamant. The topic was very good while the execution was lacking. I am usually a huge fan of Anita Diamant but there just seemed to be something missing in this particular novel. I felt the author was just giving us a rushed, this is what happened to each character, ending. If this had been the first book I read by her, I probably wouldn't feel the need to read any of her other works. Which would be a shame because she is, usually, a great author!

Based on a true story, this heartbreaking yet uplifting novel tells of four Holocaust survivors who are being held in an internment camp in Israel called Atlit. Having escaped Europe, they are still prisoners of the internment camp, trying to imagine what their future will be like once they are relocated to a new country. Bound by their experiences, each of the four bears her own burdens, guilt over how or why she survived, fear of others judgments, and unspeakable sorrows over the loss of friends and family. Each day brings them closer to a new life as they are able to forge new friendships and begin to imagine that life and a future may be possible after all that they have endured. Ms. Diamant so vividly portrays the thoughts and feelings of these women. As heartbreaking as the story is, seeing these women learn to live again is so touching.This book is really a story of hope.

Anita Diamont's novel Day After Night is set in late 1945 inside a "camp" in Haifa, just after the victims of the concentration camps have been freed and victory has been won in Europe. Many Jews, upon release from their nightmarish conditions (whether from a concentration camp, being hidden, or from concealment of identity), decide that the time has come for them to emigrate to Israel, their promised land. Unfortunately quotas for Jewish emigration to Israel have been enacted, and those without proper identification or family find themselves "held" in Atlit, a camp that is nothing more than a holding pen while their fates are decided. It is within this camp that Diamont's story focuses on four young women whose divergent stories come together as an escape is planned into the Promised Land.

Based on a true story, Day After Night brings to light the plight of many Jews, who having survived the Holocaust, found themselves interned once more while the slow wheels of government turned. Zorah, Tedi, Shayndel, and Leonie spent the war years in different ways but all have decided that their best hope to escape the past lies in living within a kibbutz in Israel. The story alternates between the women as they try to come to terms with their pasts as they prepare for an uncertain future. All of the women have special gifts that enable them to be leaders in the secret escape planned for the almost two hundred Jews trapped within the camp, yet they find themselves at the mercy of their demons, unable to forgive themselves for surviving when so many others perished.

Day Into Night is a glimpse into the aftermath of the Holocaust, a time I admit to knowing little about beforehand. I liked how Diamont revealed the layers of the characters slowly, bringing their private griefs to the surface as the result of events going on around them. There is not a great deal of background revealed, but what does come to light shows the justification for actions and emotions. I do wish that a clearer explanation of what a kibbutz is had been supplied (and might be in the final edition, as this was an advanced reader copy), and a little more story on how each woman got along in the immediate days after escape would have been welcome. But this is indeed a well-told tale, and I found myself caught up completely within the lives of these fictional women thrown into a very real event. Recommended.

I found this on the bargain rack at a bookstore near my hotel in Lexington last weekend. Since I loved The Red Tent,I thought I'd give it a try and I'm glad I did. It is hard to imagine the horror the Jews of Europe endured during WWII, and easy to understand why they wanted a place of their own. I don't really know the history of the Middle East during that era, but I know that the people of Israel have not really been at peace since then.

This book tells briefly of the wartime experiences of the four main characters and then follows them into and out of Atlit. They are women tortured by the past, but women looking to the future. They love--and they hate. They are victims; yet they are survivors too.

I highly recommend the book and give it an A.

Day After Night tells the true story of the rescue of undocumented Jewish immigrants from an Israeli internment camp in the months immediately following World War II. The story is told from the points of view of four different women, separately at first, and then deftly woven together.

I read this book in one sitting; it was an interesting story with interesting characters. Diamant fleshes out not only the four main characters but a number of minor characters as well, from the British army soldiers to the camp cook, a permanent resident and member of the spy ring responsible for the breakout.

I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy historical or religious-themed fiction, particularly those books that take the female perspective (such as The Romance Reader,The Red Tent: A Novel, or The Rapture of Canaan).

As WWII loomed, and Hitler tightened the noose around the Jews of Europe, Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass," took place throughout Germany on November 9th and 10th, 1938. Almost 30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps, 200 synagogues were destroyed, and 91 Jews were beaten to death.

The British, which ruled Palestine after WWI, were aware of the importance of Arab oil to successfully fight the coming war. They published a White Paper on May 17, 1939, that reduced Jewish immigration to Palestine to a trickle, severely limiting the number of Jews permitted to enter the country in an effort to pacify the Arab leadership's demand for a halt to Jewish immigration.

Thus, in the late 1930's, when the Jews of Germany and Austria were in great danger, Palestine was closed to them. The rise of the Nazis in Germany in 1933 and the later military conquests by Germany gave Hitler's antisemitic government control over most of the populations of Europe. As the realization grew that the Nazi's were intent on the extermination of European Jews, there was an urgent need for them to emigrate. However, most countries closed their doors to them. Only Palestine held out the hope of new settlement where Jews would be welcome. Or rather, that would be the case if it were not for the British restrictions.

The Jews already living in Palestine were determined that their trapped brethren in Europe who managed to escape the coming conflagration, must be brought to Palestine. Thus, the movement for "illegal immigration," which its proponents preferred to call "clandestine immigration," was launched.

Ships, most of them unseaworthy, were hired and set sail from various European ports toward Palestine. The British, who had at their disposal battleships, radar and airplanes, managed to intercept most of them, and sent their Jewish passengers back to certain death in Europe. From 1934 until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, some 3,000 "illegal immigrants" met their deaths while struggling against the British to enter Palestine. Also, many of the Jews who attempted to immigrate to the Mandatory Palestine during the 1940s were caught after a struggle while arriving by any and every route. They were interned in detention camps - British concentration camps - only differing from the German camps in that the inmates were not starved, gassed or cremated. Over time 50,000 people were imprisoned in these camps during and after WWII, and several thousand children were born there. One such camp was "Atlit," which is the setting for "Day After Night."

The Atlit detention camp, located near Haifa, was constructed by the British Mandate in Palestine, at the end of the 1930s, as a military camp on the Mediterranean coast. It was converted by them between 1939 -1948 to a detention camp for illegals who found themselves, yet again, incarcerated behind barbed wire. The novel takes place over the course of a few months and is based on the true story of the rescue of the inmates from the Atlit camp in October 1945.

The narrative focuses on four Jewish women, all Holocaust survivors, all Atlit inmates, all from extremely different backgrounds, who wait for their release from the camp and the freedom to, hopefully, begin new lives as pioneers on kibbutzim, (collective farms or settlements). Anita Diamant writes, "Not one of the women in Barrack C is twenty-one, but all of them are orphans."

Leonie is a lovely, sophisticated Parisian who was forced into prostitution. She slept with Germans in order to survive. Many of "her men" found their pleasure by causing her physical and emotional pain. The experience has crippled her psychologically. At first, her three new friends at Atlit condemn her and she is told by one, "When they do find out about you, they will shame you in public. They will send you away. Maybe they will even stone you to death, which would be very biblical, don't you think? And so appropriate." Leonie clearly remembers the times when she faced situations when refusal would have meant death. But she is not the only woman in the group who did whatever necessary in order to survive. "Many were reluctant to tell their own stories because all of them began and ended with the same horrible question" 'Why was I spared?'"

Zorah is a survivor of Auschwitz where she lost everyone she loved. She utilized her gift for languages there and added Romanian, German, some Italian and French to her native languages, Yiddish and Hebrew. This unusual linguistic education, learned from fellow inmates, was her method of survival although her life is still so haunted by atrocitites that she has become numb. When Atlit inmates pray and praise god, Zorah silently chants to a "God who brings Nazis to his universe."

Shayndel is a Polish Zionist who fought with the partisans during the war. She is a modest, humble woman, who works with the Palmach, the Jewish military forces, in Atlit. Her job is to find out which Jews, if any, had been Nazi collaborators.

Tedi, a Dutch Jewess, tall and blonde, was once told by a friend in Amsterdam that she was lucky - she looked like a poster child for Hitler Youth. She "passed" as an Arayan until she was captured near the end of the war. Tedi escaped from a boxcar in route to a concentration camp and was found by British soldiers who sent her to a displaced person's center in Landsberg. After more barbed wire, endless barracks and waiting in more lines than she could count, she wound up in Atlit.

These four women's shared horrors surrounding the Holocaust bond them in friendship. They give each other love and support in order to get through each day and try to recover some semblance of "normal" life.

Obviously "Day After Night" is not a pleasant read, although the novel is well written and the characters are extremely life like. I think the author's point of view is extremely optimisic. I was haunted by the story long after finishing it. One of the consequences the survivors face, besides their wartime experience and survivors guilt, is the challenge of building new lives. Many are just not up to it. The pain they live with saps their energy and will to live. However, the four friends, Leonie, Zorah, Shayndel, and Tedi seem to have hope for a future and the strength to overcome their suffering and fight for redemption.
Jana Perskie

The Red Tent: A Novel
The Last Days of Dogtown: A Novel

If you liked Anita Diamant's "The Red Tent" for its richness and depth, you may not like this book. This book takes flight from Ms. Diamant's clearly intense reaction to visiting the Atlit detention camp (now a museum). But the story itself is "Diamant light." It deals with a fascinating time -- post-Shoah and pre-Israel independence. But the characters are less individuals and more representatives of the varieties of Holocaust experiences. The action that moves the drama at the center of this book mostly takes place outside the covers of the book. That said, I liked this book. It was a vivid depiction of the period. It put a human face on the conflicts between the British in Palestine and the leaders of the movement to Israel's independence, and between survivors and sabras. It illuminates the huge leap of faith that Holocaust survivors had to make to move forward, to take a chance on the future and to exchange being Polish, German, Dutch or French to become Israeli.

Day after Night is historical fiction that takes place in Atlit, a real place with real stories to tell. My girlfriend got me this book after her trip to Israel which included seeing the historical site of Atlit. The author did her homework and covered a spectrum of war experiences capturing the emotions, secrets, and trials of survivors. There is always much going on in this story to cover all the senses, stresses, and complex emotions of life in early Palestine. I felt for each one of the characters and cared what happened to them. These characters (archetypes) are now the old ladies of Israel--the same ones you might meet in a cafe or on the bus. Anita Diamant did a brilliant job with this novel. A story well told and a worthy read.

This novel focuses on four extraordinary women in a British detention camp following WWII. In their attempt to reach the shores of Israel, they are detained as illegal immigrants in Atlit, just short of their goal. Each woman has a different story of terror and survival during the war, which therefore molds their outlook and motive for seeking refuge in Israel. It is really a compelling story, and I love that period of history, but there was something lacking. I found the writing disjointed and sometimes inconsistent. It just didn't have the fluidity for good progression. While the characters were very well developed, I was left wanting more. Overall, the story was engaging and effective as historical fiction, but it left me with the impression that it could have been better developed into something more emotional and profound.

You will love this book just as much as me. I can't get enough of this part of history. These women seem to be so real, I couldn't tell you which one was my favorite, they all had so much depth to them.

The picture on the front, I just thought went perfectly as well. The picture is one of the first things that gets me, and this one hit the spot!

As with any book, at first I have trouble telling who is talking, with all the going back and forth, but then it just flowed like a conversation. What a remarkable subject, very touching, poignant, thoughtful, done tastefully in this reviewers opinion. Brilliant work, I didn't want it to end, wanting to know what they all thought a few years down the road.

The story of the Atlit camp is one of many moving stories of the end of WWII and the founding of the Israeli state. The camp currently has a museum, which I was recently fortunate to visit, that tells the tale of some of the people who were detained in the camp. Knowing some of the history, I was excited to get the chance to read this book of historical fiction.

The plot is great - it is the story of four young women (plus a few other minor characters) who came to what was to become Israel and were confined to Atlit detention camp. Although the camp provided very much appreciated food and shelter, it was basically a prison and members of the Palmach, a group that would evolve into the Israeli military, helped the prisoners escape.

Unfortunately, the story was written in too basic of a manner, like it was aimed at middle school readers or that it had been translated by someone who knew few nuances of English. The characters didn't have depth and were almost caricatures. Tough girl, tortured beauty, everyone had their place. The book would have greatly benefitted by being a hundred pages or more longer and fleshing out the characters. As it stands, it would be a good book for younger readers, but was too trite handling of a dynamic subject for me.

I bought this book primarily because I adore Anita Diamant's work, not so much for the book's storyline. However, I found it to be utterly fascinating and realistic. The story is simple, and while there are only a few major plot advances, Diamant writes each character so vividly and dips deeply into their backgrounds that you are never bored. Everyone's story is a derivative of other Holocaust tales you've probably heard, but Diamant touches on them so delicately and finely that you feel can feel the agony, desperation, and hopelessness that each character felt.

I read this book in two sittings (since I had to go work at some point!) and was sad to see it end, but satisfied in the ending. Another fantastic piece by Diamant!

Did you know that after the Jews were rescued from the concentration camps they were not immediately set free? Many were sent to dentainment centers before they could be free once again.

This is the story of four young women whe were kept in such a camp.

Atlit is the temporary home of Shayndel, Leonie, Zorah and Tedi; it doesn't seem temporary, though.

Anita Diamant unfolds the tale of what these women had to do to survive the atrocities of the Holocaust only to then be interred by the British. Though they are treated better by them, confinement is still confinement and these women are willing to sacrifice once more to achieve their freedom.

After reading this book once, I had to start again to realize just how much the character grew through their shared experiences. They learn again to love, trust and believe, in people and themselves.

Anita Diamant's Day After Night is based on the true event of over two hundred prisoners, who having survived the Holocaust and the Nazis, only to find themselves imprisoned again as illegal immigrants after "making their way to their ancesteral homeland," Palestine. Although, I have read many Holocaust survivors' books, fiction and non-fiction, I was not aware of this post-WWII British run internment camp, Atlit,near the Mediterranean coast or of their resulting escape. Although Diamant's novel is a work of fiction, I found this part of history amazing and incredulous.

I am a huge fan of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent. Like many, I have read it several times and it is easily one of my all time favorites. That said, my anticipation and expectations for this new novel was great. Unfortunately, it starts out slow and maintains the same plodding course. I felt her characters were not as well drawn as I would have expected. As much as I wanted, I never really got to know any of the characters as I had hoped -- save for the horrific stories leading them to that point in time. I was frustrated in that just as I began to get to know a character, the topic would change-- or worse yet, the book ended! The pace finally picks up during the actual escape to the kibbutz, Beit Oren -- a mere 55 pages from the end. Easily could have been another 2oo pages. This was good, not great. Although the novel was of a disturbing and raw substance, it left me wanting it to be something more. Still I will recommend it as it is extremely interesting and educational. But be forewarned, this is no "The Red Tent."

Wow, this is a great book.

I loved Anita Diament's "The Red Tent", and I knew she is a fantastic writer, but this book blew me away.

She focuses on four young women, from different parts of Europe, with different personalities who each survived the Holocaust and view their stay in Athlit with different points of view.

Each of her lead characters had a strong, induvidual voice that could be an induvidual story in their own right.

Combining historical facts with believable characters and gripping story, Ms. Diament does it again.

I had high expectations for this novel, given the subject matter and the author, after having read her remarkable book, The Red Tent. After a great beginning, it quickly became apparent that the rest of the book would be rather "muddy" for me...the lack of character development is so profound that it would be some time before I realized who the most relevant characters were, and even more before I could appreciate their relationship/importance to each other. Although I found the novel to certainly be an education to me with regard to the existence of internment camps in "the promised land," the book was not as substantial as it could have been. Started with a bang, ended with a profoundly moving conclusion and epilogue, but everything in the middle left a lot to be desired.

DYB

While I admit to at times having trouble keeping the characters straight, this book was never-the-less a powerful retelling of a piece of WWII history I was totally unfamiliar with: women who were living in a British-run camp in Israel for Jewish men and women just post-WWII. The women each have their own story surviving through the war, and the narrative provides unique insight into a forgotten piece of well-known history. I found sections long-winded, but ultimately the storytelling pulled through.

Day after Night was truly unique and wonderful book.

It captures a short but pivotal time period of Jewish history: Post-War, Pre-State. There is a confluence of themes, woven together. The outer layer theme is the Jewish frame of reference on the one hand questioning God after surviving the worst of atrocities, and on the other, clinging to religion, as seen in the young self-appointed rabbi of Atlit who sees to it that the tradition continues despite. The replacement of religious belief was the Zionist dream, played out by Shaydel's character. This captured the forward moving, post war attitude of Israel and Israelis. This was quite interesting to see the roots of modern day Israel.

The inner layer is about Jewish women's experience of the trauma of this time. Ms. Diament deftly explores issues of loss and sexual abuse. Bringing the reader back in time, Ms. Diament enables you to truly empathize with the complexity and reality each character possesses. That said, each character showed special, unique strength and indominable character to survive. This inner layer of pain ranging from haunting memories of murdered families, to rape, to prostitution is handled with subtleness. Additionally, the main characaters learn to experience tentative gentleness with each other, as seen in the deep levels of sharing and comfort exchanged by the women. They gave each other room to be themselves, to accept the pain of the other, without trying to change anything. what a glorious feat it was to have walked this fine line of joining the women with their shared suffering while honoring each of the own private hells that belonged only to each woman.

This wonderful novel underscores the complexity of a woman's reaction and relationship to this time period as seen through her relationships with herself, her past and with the other women. This work brings home the point of just how pivotal a time this was, nationally but also personally, as women about to start their own journeys of healing and ultimately towards rebuilding their lives.

It is the fiction and Non Fiction (history) aspects of this book that through Ms. Diament's eyes we see the kindness, complexity and wonder of this very brief snapshot in time.

This is an incredible book!

A must read!

Leah Jacobson

Anita Diamant offers a warm and wonderful look at the traumas of the Holocaust through the rearview mirror. We read so many stories about what happened during the war - but many of them end with liberation. To follow the stories of survivors just shows how hard it really was to survive, and how much of that survival was based on nothing but luck...a word that seems to carry great weight with the survivors themselves. I would have liked the book to go on longer, but I really appreciated the "what happened to them afterwards" in the epilogue. A really lovely book, I highly recommend it.

I just finished Day After Night, and feel I'm still in Israel, 1945, with the women - including Esther, who isn't credited as one of the main characters - whose stories come together when they meet at Atlit, the British internment camp south of Haifa, Israel.

I wouldn't have complained had the book been four times as long. Each of these women (again, including Esther) deserved her own book. As is, Day After Night is still praiseworthy, but in the way of a meal at an expensive fusion restaurant, where you get a mouth-watering, beautifully prepared scallop. Singular.

As long as I'm complaining, I'd like to put in a vote for more WWII historical fiction. I think that editors and agents are feeling as though the subject's been overdone. Could not happen.

Anita Diamant's Day After Night focuses on four women of different backgrounds in the aftermath of WWII. They are classified as displaced by the British and are housed with hundreds in a camp in Palestine waiting for permission to immigrate to the *new* Israel. Although life at Camp Atlit is relatively safe and clean, the mobility restrictions, barbed wire, and guards are eerie reminders of Nazi concentration camps. The women become friends despite disparate backgrounds: one is a concentration camp survivor, a resistance fighter, a tainted beauty, and an unassuming (blonde, blue-eyed) Jewess. Their back stories were revealed via flashbacks as they passed their time waiting for news and reflecting on their journey thus far; and it is through these memories we learn of their trials, tribulations, and hopes. While their treks were interesting enough, I would have appreciated a deeper dive into their lives.

I consider myself a fan of the author and was eagerly awaiting this release. However, I'm disappointed to write that this novel simply did not resonate with me as much as The Red Tent and The Last Days of Dogtown. The writing was sense of place was marginally accomplished -- although I like that it was a slice of history revisited, the book fell short for me in its failure to endear me to the women and move the plot along as it seemed elongated and meandering at times.

The characters of Day After Night communicate what it means to keep going despite the odds. The four main characters, Leonie, Shayndel, Tedi, and Zorah, have one of the strongest bonds of friendship built by adversity, and their stories are a testament to that adversity.

Shayndel is a natural born leader with a strong will, and a determination to shape her own future. Leonie is a beautiful Persian who has had more struggles than people realize. Tedi is the tall, blonde Dutch who has a huge heart, and Zorah is a biting and hardened survivor of her past. Throughout the story, the four friends help each other through their struggles.

This story is a truly amazing testament about the power of human will and the ability to survive anything. Set in Israel after World War II was over, the story gives an insight into what the lives of Jewish people looked like after the war was over, an account that many people don't know. Everyone should read this book because the Holocaust was so much more complicated than a group of people being put into concentration camps, and it truly tore apart families, friends, and lives. This book communicates that hurt through the stories of four down-to-earth, determined women.

This opens up a little-known period in history through the stories of four young women who begin the process of rebuilding their lives after unbearable loss. Their stories illustrate the depth and breadth of the relocation of the surviving Jews after the Holocaust. A wonderful book.

The tone of this novel is dark, perhaps by design to convey the past agonies of the four female protagonists; they are the survivors of the Holocaust. The story is based on a true event, the post war detainment and rescue of several hundred prisoners from the Atlit detention camp for illegal immigrants. For me this was the initial draw to the book. I read "The Red Tent" by this author and thought the tragic circumstances of these women combined with Anita Diamant's powerful writing style and talent for exquisitely depicting the female bonding process would make for intense, dramatic reading. I loved the unique perspective the storyline provided into this small slice of history, but have to admit the characters were flat at times; it was an effort to keep track of who was who. The writing style was also a bit lackluster with large portions of the book devoted to random conversations between the characters; most of the action was held in reserve until the end of the book. The book sheds light on the interesting, little know period of post war Europe but for me at least, failed to convey the emotional trauma the characters suffered though and the deep frustration they must have felt at once again being held captive waiting for their freedom. The book certainly has great historical value, I recommend it to those who crave knowledge on the aftermath of the Holocaust and don't mind a presentation that seeks to educate rather than entertain.

Anita Diamant's novel, Day After Night, presents four young women who come together in 1945 when they arrive at Atlit, a British internment camp in Palestine. As illegal immigrants who found passage away from the scars of their wartime lives in Europe, these four women display dimensions of ongoing shock, both from their recent experiences, and in arriving at a place of incarceration when they expected to start new lives. Each woman finds rescue, of one sort or another, as Diamant takes readers behind the barbed wire of Atlit, and into the personal stories of these women. Thanks to Diamant's fine writing, I felt as if I were in Atlit with those women, and I came to understand their fears and hopes.

Rating: Three-star (Recommended)

While I have read many books chronicling the Holocaust, I know almost nothing about the period after the war and what happened to the many people who were liberated from the concentration camps. It was for this reason that I really looked forward to Day after Night by Anita Diamant. And perhaps because the author had written the almost perfect beach Bible book, The Red Tent, and is a well known writer on Judaic topics, I thought this would be a really good read. Unfortunately I was really disappointed reading this book and finished it by skimming it.

Why, in my opinion did this book fail, and why the two star rating from me. To begin with, the writing itself was very ordinary and at times I though some of my high school students could have done a better job. And then there was the failure of the characters to make any impression on me. The characters were never fully developed or even poignant in view of these character's lives in recent years. Finally I never visualized what the camp at Atlit looked like except for the barbed wire exterior. For all of theswe reasons I felt the book was rushed and never fully rang true. Maybe my expectations were just too high for this author but I'm hoping, in the future, I will enjoy a well written book that she writes.

I was disappointed in this book. I thought the premise was fascinating - Jews who were being detained after WWII by the British as they made their way to Israel. There was so much I didn't know about this period of time, and after reading this book I still don't! I think this book could have been much more in-depth, both in the history and in the characters. The characters were almost two-dimensional - I didn't feel connected to any of them - the backgrounds were only a few pages long and scattered around the book. Unlike The Red Tent, which was outstanding, this book just didn't do justice to the story.

Well written a great story. These women are triumphant. You want everyone to be happy in the end but it is a real story and life is always messy. These women experienced the worst treatment by men and women and yet together they were a force for healing and living.

In my opinion, this is a two star book; however, I decided to give it a three star rating for only one reason. Hopefully, this book might awaken or provoke one reader to question, 'Where was the moral conscience of the world during Nazism?' 'Why was there a quota imposed on those Holocaust survivors wishing entry into what would become Israel?'

Anita Diamant appears to make a valiant attempt in providing the readers with four characters' survival under Nazism. I am not going to restate what is all ready known about these young women other than their names. They are Tedi, Zorah, Shayndel, and Leonie. They meet at Atlit, an internment camp for detainees. Diamant's portrayal of Atlit is, most likely, based on its history. Atlit was run by the British. Those interested in Atlit will find that Google, as well as other sources, offers some additional enlightenment.

While reading 'Day After Night,' I found myself puzzled since I was unable to connect to Diamant's four characters. Certainly, this is fertile emotional territory. All four of these four young women lost everything that they held dear. They lost their families and their homelands. They, and so many like them, in the late 1940's are seeking entry into what would eventually become Israel. One would think that this should have been easily accomplished. However, this was not the case. These individuals were blocked entry into Israel by British red tape.

Author Anita Diamant brings a number of characters into 'Day After Night.' She does this prior to firmly developing her main characters. I never felt as if I 'knew' Tedi, Zorah, Shayndel or Leonie. The pity of this is that I really wanted to become better acquainted with them, their desires/goals; their entire families, their backgrounds, their full interests, their beliefs, etc. Initially, it seemed as if they had compelling histories to share with prospective readers. Where were the 'in-depth' narratives on each of these four characters?

Diamant's writing, at times, appears almost naive. Her prose is basic, thus, it lacks fluidity. Unfortunately, I ultimately found this novel to be tedious. In good conscience, I cannot recommend 'Day After Night.' [However, for new readers on this subject, I highly recommend the works of Leon Uris. He captured this period so well many years ago in 'Exodus.' His characters were fully formed and multi-dimensional. His message was presented with great clarity, insight and depth. I read this novel a lifetime ago, but it feels as if it were yesterday.]

Coda: If I were, independently, reading this book, I do not think that I would have completed it. Thus, it would, most likely, go without a review. However, The Vine Program provided me with this book, and I feel obligated to submit this review.

I was disappointed in this book. I thought the premise was fascinating - Jews who were being detained after WWII by the British as they made their way to Israel. There was so much I didn't know about this period of time, and after reading this book I still don't! I think this book could have been much more in-depth, both in the history and in the characters. The characters were almost two-dimensional - I didn't feel connected to any of them - the backgrounds were only a few pages long and scattered around the book. Unlike The Red Tent, which was outstanding, this book just didn't do justice to the story.

Well written a great story. These women are triumphant. You want everyone to be happy in the end but it is a real story and life is always messy. These women experienced the worst treatment by men and women and yet together they were a force for healing and living.

In my opinion, this is a two star book; however, I decided to give it a three star rating for only one reason. Hopefully, this book might awaken or provoke one reader to question, 'Where was the moral conscience of the world during Nazism?' 'Why was there a quota imposed on those Holocaust survivors wishing entry into what would become Israel?'

Anita Diamant appears to make a valiant attempt in providing the readers with four characters' survival under Nazism. I am not going to restate what is all ready known about these young women other than their names. They are Tedi, Zorah, Shayndel, and Leonie. They meet at Atlit, an internment camp for detainees. Diamant's portrayal of Atlit is, most likely, based on its history. Atlit was run by the British. Those interested in Atlit will find that Google, as well as other sources, offers some additional enlightenment.

While reading 'Day After Night,' I found myself puzzled since I was unable to connect to Diamant's four characters. Certainly, this is fertile emotional territory. All four of these four young women lost everything that they held dear. They lost their families and their homelands. They, and so many like them, in the late 1940's are seeking entry into what would eventually become Israel. One would think that this should have been easily accomplished. However, this was not the case. These individuals were blocked entry into Israel by British red tape.

Author Anita Diamant brings a number of characters into 'Day After Night.' She does this prior to firmly developing her main characters. I never felt as if I 'knew' Tedi, Zorah, Shayndel or Leonie. The pity of this is that I really wanted to become better acquainted with them, their desires/goals; their entire families, their backgrounds, their full interests, their beliefs, etc. Initially, it seemed as if they had compelling histories to share with prospective readers. Where were the 'in-depth' narratives on each of these four characters?

Diamant's writing, at times, appears almost naive. Her prose is basic, thus, it lacks fluidity. Unfortunately, I ultimately found this novel to be tedious. In good conscience, I cannot recommend 'Day After Night.' [However, for new readers on this subject, I highly recommend the works of Leon Uris. He captured this period so well many years ago in 'Exodus.' His characters were fully formed and multi-dimensional. His message was presented with great clarity, insight and depth. I read this novel a lifetime ago, but it feels as if it were yesterday.]

Coda: If I were, independently, reading this book, I do not think that I would have completed it. Thus, it would, most likely, go without a review. However, The Vine Program provided me with this book, and I feel obligated to submit this review.

As much as it pains me to say this, where Diamant's The Red Tent was inspiring and transcended the woman's lit genre, Day After Night unfortunately seems flat and lifeless and transcends nothing. There is no one flaw that made this book boring and tedious despite its interesting premise and short length; perhaps its because there were numerous problems for me.

The Red Tent is the only book I've read by Diamant but it seems like this book was written by someone else. The quality of writing in Day After Night comes off as very pedestrian while The Red Tent was so emotive, vibrant and beautiful. The pacing is fine but the overall plot and succession of events has a very blase attitude and I never felt any dramatic tension expected from a story about the breakout from Atlit. Diamant focuses the story on 4 main characters deterred in Atlit but none of them stand out or captured my attention.

I would recommend reading the first 15 pages of this book at the store as it pretty much exemplifies whats in store. If you like it or you have some personal connection to the subject matter then this book may be for you but otherwise I wouldn't recommend it.

I couldn't put this book down. I love the fact that this post-Holocaust book is told from four, different women's perspectives. This fictional book is written from a not well-known true event, which makes it very interesting. Additionally, this book was amazing because it addressed the guilt associated with surviving. This book was an easy ready and it is one you will think about long after you finish reading it. Bravo!

I have watched a lot of WWII documentaries and read my share on the history of this dark time in our human existence, but I had no clue about this story!
What an amazing delve into the horrors mankind/womankind can overcome when the will is strong and the quest for survival is shared.
A period in our history that must be told and never forgotten....and the author has done both with a book I could not put down.

Loved this deeply sad look at a world continuing to shut the doors on the abused victims of the Nazis. Leonie and Zorah were my favorites. It makes you feel silly complaining when these women had real woes. Just lost a star for slowness.

This good story follows a group of young women from all over Europe who are thrown together by the war in 1945. At first they are mistrustful, bitter, and hiding their guilty secrets, but they begin to rely on each other and as they act on their impulses to nurture others who have suffered, they find they are able to begin healing the broken places within themselves

I was surprisingly disappointed. The setting and plot are a fascinating part of history that I know nothing about, and this could have been a great book. But I felt like I was reading a Reader's Digest Condensed version of something. The novel introduced too many characters, and barely scratched the surface of the main four. There wasn't enough character development for me to believe or understand these women, or to become involved in the plot and care about the outcome.

It was well written enough that I finished it (and I'm not shy about dropping books that I'm not enjoying), so I gave it three stars, but as I said, it was a disappointing read.

I have thought about how to write this review for sometime now. I had maybe to much anticipation for this book. Almost like anticipating Christmas but not getting the presents I thought I might. Writing about this time in history seems like a recipie for a amazing story of survival. These are such stories of the human spirit crushed only to survive and rising above. I have to say that I didn't find that quite in this book.

I couldn't get my heart and mind around these characters. It was hard to keep them straight because of it. Only a difference in backgrounds made alot of these women different. I would expect them to be grounded down, but I felt the book didn't have any sharp edges.

I didn't believe that Anita Diamant developed these characters enough. What made them survivors?? Even if the situation defeats a person...where is the discussion about what keeps these woman going...because they have no choice. Where is the story about the struggle to keep going even if the afterlife of this horror didn't meet expectations.

What is the point to this novel?? I think I missed it somehow. I will go back and read it again. Not liking this book is a wonderment to me. I was expecting a book of survival. These women just seem bored.....it is almost like they woke up from a coma not knowing who they are. I have missed the point to this novel. Hopefully the point of this review won't be missed.

Why did these woman survive?? I think the problem I had with this book wasn't the writing. This book describes what happens to these women, but I didn't get how going through this part of history affect them. How might this experience change their lives?

I missed the point to the book. I just could not find heart with these women, and connect with them. I loved the Red Tent and haven't read anything else by Anita Aiamant. Even thought I shouldn't have had expected similarities to the Red Tent I believe they could have been there.

I will try to read this book again because I feel like I missed the point, and I am left wondering what was the point???

I would give a 2.5 if I could because it almost makes a three, just not quite. I found it very enlightening about the what the Jews went through after WWII and I appreciate that as there are not many novels that address the plight of Jews AFTER WW2.

This is about those Jews who wanted to go and start an all Jewish state in Palestine and each has different reasons for doing so. However, they are all missing their identification cards or paperwork so they have been detained by the British (who are in charge of this) in a camp surrounded by barbed wire and under guard. Yes, it's a bit of a prison.

The characters all compare it to the concentration camps some have previously survived. It should be noted, however, that they have plenty to eat, are being educated, are not beaten, are clothed.. I mean, really, what the heck are they complaining about? I would they would be more appreciative. After all, there is government tape to get across. (And having read Mornings in Jenin, I know that many people had to be uprooted from their homes to make room for the very people complaining in this book.) As the book continued and plot to escape unfolds, I found myself liking the characters less and less.

I realize all these women just wanted to escape the cruelty they faced for being branded 'Jews,' but this part of the book really rang true for me: "..I feel like a fraud." I felt they were all frauds. The women in the novel don't even know what being Jewish is about. (Except Zorah who doesn't even believe in god anymore.)They don't know the prayers, the language, the holidays. Some are not even Jewish. To think people were being uprooted and kicked out of their homes for them while they sit around and complain.. didn't sit well with me.

The back stories were more interesting to me though there was very little. One was involved in warfare, one was a prostitute for German soliders.. and well that was the most interesting stuff.