Out of the Shadow

# Out of the Shadow by Rose Cohen (1918)

This is an autobiographical memoir, not pulp fiction. Cohen recounts her childhood in a Russian village, opening with her earliest memory—her birth during a winter night, with her mother in labor while Cohen and her father sit atop a brick oven. The narrative captures rural Jewish life: summers picking mushrooms, winters by the stove, learning to sew from her tailor father.

At age eleven, a teacher arrives to instruct the children in reading. Cohen becomes devout, reading religious texts repeatedly. The memoir then describes her father's secret departure for America due to passport troubles—a traumatic night when he must flee immediately or face legal consequences. The family maintains secrecy while processing grief. Father is arrested crossing the border and sends word he may pass through their village under guard. As neighbors gather expectantly, a woman named Yana delivers the news of his arrest. The excerpt concludes as he appears at their gate.