Women of Theresienstadt

From a unique concentration camp established by the Nazis in 1942 in Czechoslovakia at Terezin as a ``model ghetto'' are heard the voices of women inmates in this collection of their poetry and memoirs. During the three-and-one-half years of the camp's existence, the ugly reality of life inside was at sharp variance with its public image as a resettlement oasis for European Jews. The day-to-day life described here was a coexistence of brutality and culture, with starving Jews creating music and art. In gathering the memoirs of inmates who wrote during their internment or after their release, Schwertfeger, who teaches at the University of Wisconsin, provides another dimension to the art of survival. From these fragments emerge insistent voices. (Feb.)