With My Own Eyes

Book excerpt: In this lovely and moving memoir, the world's most distinguished scholar of Jewish social history recalls a life that in many ways encapsulates the arduous path of the remnant of East European Jewry through the cataclysmic events of this century. After a childhood in the crumbling Hapsburg Empire, Jacob Katz left his native Hungary to attend the famous Yeshiva of Pressburg. He later entered the University of Frankfurt, where in 1934 he received the last doctorate granted to a Jew in Nazi Germany. Heeding ominous undercurrents, Katz immigrated to Palestine-Israel in 1936. There he witnessed the birth of the new state and the growth of the prestigious Hebrew University. With My Own Eyes, guided by the hand and eye of the consummate historian, poignantly recreates the atmosphere of the period in which the author has lived.