Hope Expired, Life Persists

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Hope Expired, Life Persists was published by Lodz University Press in July 2014. It is the story of Jacob Stupay, the author’s uncle, who was an ophthalmologist in Lodz, Poland. He lived from 1892-1954.

The story deals with Jacob Stupay’s life and times in Poland in the 1920s and 1930s. Poland was becoming increasingly suffocating, with a troubled economy and a dysfunctional political system, but Jews and Poles could not leave without substantial financial consequences. Toward the end of the 1930s, Poland for Jews was unlivable, with laws aimed at reducing them to paupers. But yet there was a cadre of professionals like Jacob Stupay, who were in sufficient demand to live a comfortable life.

The book ends with conditions in Poland in January 1945, at the end of the war, with the city’s physical destruction and the death of nearly 20 percent of the Polish population. How did these life experiences impact the survivors like Jacob Stupay? Could they function normally? Did they have symptoms of PTSD or its equivalent? How did they react to their diminished surroundings, and how did the Poles see the survivors? Jacob lived in this tumultuous period and his story has many lessons for us; his survival should be celebrated. Jacob died in 1955. The author never met him, although they had some correspondence during Jacob’s last two years.