Jacob (‘Jack’) Goldstein was mid-upper gunner in a Lancaster bomber when it was shot down by a German night-fighter during Bomber Command’s final WW2 mission to Nürnberg. It was the night of 16 March 1945, just a few weeks before the war ended. He was the only member of the seven-man crew to be killed. The title of the book derives from the simple entry ‘Shalom!’ that Jack’s widow, Sadie, poignantly wrote in the book of remembrance at the Dürnbach War Graves Cemetery where Jack is now buried.
‘Shalom, Jack’ traces Jack’s Polish family origins in an impoverished and oppressed village near Warsaw, and describes his mother bringing him to England aged just 17 months, with his two older siblings. Her husband, Yosef, had travelled to London shortly before to pave the way to a new life. They were one of thousands of families who fled the increasing discrimination and persecution facing Jewish people in Eastern Europe just before the start of WW1.
The book vividly relates in detail the struggles of Jack’s upbringing amongst the poverty and deprivation of London’s East End, overwhelmingly tempered by the love and happiness of his family, and growing up as one of eleven siblings. It describes his marriage to Sarah (‘Sadie’) Goldberg, whose parents also came to the UK as immigrants from Russian Poland. Poverty, illness and tragedy were ever-present in Sadie’s childhood; she was still 15 years old when her mother died, and she had to shoulder the responsibility of bringing up her five siblings, ages ranging from 14 to just 3.
When WW2 broke out, all nine Goldstein and Goldberg boys enlisted for the armed forces, committed to fighting for the country that had given their parents safe sanctuary, freedom and opportunities for peaceful lives, and to help overcome the tyranny and evil aggression with which the Nazis threatened the world. But Jack’s
