We Must Not Think of Ourselves: A Novel

We Must Not Think of Ourselves is set in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II, a place where horrors were carried out by the Nazis against the Polish Jews. However, the book still has moments of hope and lightness, and Grodstein uses these to explore the resilience of the human spirit even in the face of unprecedented tragedy.

Through Adam’s archival work as part of the Oneg Shabbat project, he and the reader are exposed to the different goings on in the ghetto. A lot of the reports include increasingly disheartening news from outside the ghetto, such as the Nazi expansion and atrocities committed against Jews across the globe. Inside the ghetto, too, conditions are stark, with the constant threat of death via illness, starvation, or murder. Despite this, the ghetto as a whole still experiences moments of joy. There are public concerts, theater performances, even weddings that take place and are celebrated by the whole community. These varied reports suggest the possibility of lightness coexisting alongside tragedy and despair.

This possibility is further explored through individual character arcs and events. Adam, for instance, arrives at the ghetto having already undergone a lifetime of heartbreak, but with the