The Pessimist’s Son

A personal Holocaust memoir, historically rich and deeply contextual, that traces intertwined family stories through Nazi and Soviet terror—and postwar challenges of survival and rebuilding.

The Pessimist’s Son centers on Alexander Kimel, whose life unfolds from a shtetl in the Polish Ukraine, to a Nazi ghetto, to liberation. Interwoven is the harrowing story of his wife, Eva, whose father was murdered in the “Holocaust by Bullets,” the mass shootings that claimed more than a million Jewish lives outside the camps.

Written as a dialogue across generations, the memoir offers a rare and intimate portrayal of Jewish survivors who remained in Communist Poland after the war. Narrative reflections by their son, informed by his lifelong relationship with Poland, provide historical and personal context throughout. The Pessimist’s Son explores the antisemitism Alex and Eva faced, the lives they rebuilt under repression, and their decisions to leave Poland in 1956 and, ultimately, emigrate to America.

By including the experiences of extended family members, the book provides a panoramic portrait of Polish Jewry before, during, and after the Holocaust—revealing not only devastation and loss, but also ingenuity, determination, and resilience.