Deborah Levy- Bertherat has written this short but fascinating story. It has been translated from the French by Adriana Hunter. What a wonderful story of a great uncle who travels around the world and writes adventure stories for children. Great-uncle Daniel is the life of the kids table at family holiday meals. All the children in the family are reading his books and following the heroic journeys of Peter Ashley-Mill, in the Black Insignia series. All the children except Helene. She never liked the books as a child. She also was very critical of her uncle, who wrote under the pen name H.R. Sanders. Now she is living in the upstairs apartment owned by Great- uncle Daniel Roche or is it Daniel Ascher?
Helene meets a fellow student, Guillaume who is quite enthusiastic about the Black Insignia series of books and thrilled to meet the author. Guillaume can quote from the books. He encourages Helene to read the books and they discuss them in detail. As Helene gets to know her uncle better she starts to see similarities between him and his character. She also begins to question the memories of her childhood when Uncle Daniel would come to visit and the stories she heard at home about his childhood.
When a postcard he sends her from one of his trips turns out to be false, she starts to search for her uncle and uncover his past. This book takes a very subtle approach to the Holocaust and the Jews escape or capture from Germany. Without too much detail of the atrocities of war this beautiful story makes clear what happened to Jewish families and how some people were able to escape while others were not. The book also shows how their war experience can affect them for the rest of their life.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Friday, June 26, 2015
Safekeeping
OK I get it, life is not all peaches and cream. There is not always a happy ending in real life. But, when you are reading a book, can't there be just a little bit of an suspension of disbelief??? Many times when you delve into a great novel, you are looking for that escape from all the real world problems and hoping that for these characters, in this one instance, this time there may be some chance for a different outcome.
Author, Jessamyn Hope has written just that type of novel. Set in Israel during the peace talks of 1994, between Yasser Arafat and Menachem Begin, Hope has written a wonderful multi layered story of life on a kibbutz. taking the reader back to the Holocaust and the birth of the State of Israel and the beginning of kibbutzim, she has created characters than span the generations.
Together for one summer are six diverse people thrown together to work through their various problems and escape their pasts. On Kibbutz Sadot Hadar their lives intersect and each plays off the others as they attempt to the trajectory they were on. Adam, a young drug addict, trying to rectify his past crimes and honor his Holocaust refugee grandfather comes to the kibbutz to find a woman his grandfather loved fifty years before. He is trying to track down the mystery woman and return a brooch to her for his grandfather, but she seems to elude him. Also volunteering on the kibbutz are a few other lost souls trying to turn their lives around. Ulya, an ambitious, Soviet emigre who wants to see New York City; Farid, the lovelorn Palestinian farmhand; Claudette, the French Canadian Catholic with OCD; Ofir the Israeli teenager who wants to escape to America and become a musician; and Ziva, the old Zionist Socialist firebrand who help found the kibbutz.
As we get to know each of the characters we learn about their background and how they ended up on the kibbutz and where they wish they were going. Then we see how the interactions between people and the experiences that happen to them in every day life and dramatically change the course of their
plans. In this novel you need to be careful you get attached to because just like in real life, things don't always end up perfect and happy for everyone. Just when you are routing for a character, they can take a downward spiral and change course and even if you are hoping they will straighten themselves out, just like a real friend, sometimes it seems they cannot save themselves.
The book is fascinating and keeps you glued to the page all the way through. The characters are beautifully developed and as a reader you do begin to like and root for some and some you are not so attached to and hope maybe they will not succeed in their endeavours. Jessamyn Hope also does a wonderful job with her description of the kibbutz and the lifestyle there. She brings to life the idea of all for one and one for all spirit that was there at the beginning. She also brings it full circle and shows how that atmosphere is not as important today as it was for the pioneers.
As the kibbutz goes through a vote to change from everyone working for the common good to a place where each is paid according to their position, Ziva, the original organizer of the kibbutz feels betrayed, "Greed egotism, corruption, have always won out in the end, always except...Here. The kibbutz. The kibbutz is the only long lasting, completely voluntary, socialist utopia in the world. If you want to own a private home or SUV or climb a corporate ladder - fine, by all means, go ahead. Move to Tel-Aviv. Or New York. London, Tokyo, Bombay. Anywhere in the world. But, please, leave this one small corner of the map alone."
Hope also describes the Jews escape from Germany and the refugees coming to Israel in historical detail. She recreates the feelings they had as they developed the farms and planted the orchards and created community. She recounts the feelings also as the United Nations voted to make Israel a state.
Jessamyn Hope has written a wonderful first novel that stays with you long after you have finished the last page.
Author, Jessamyn Hope has written just that type of novel. Set in Israel during the peace talks of 1994, between Yasser Arafat and Menachem Begin, Hope has written a wonderful multi layered story of life on a kibbutz. taking the reader back to the Holocaust and the birth of the State of Israel and the beginning of kibbutzim, she has created characters than span the generations.
Together for one summer are six diverse people thrown together to work through their various problems and escape their pasts. On Kibbutz Sadot Hadar their lives intersect and each plays off the others as they attempt to the trajectory they were on. Adam, a young drug addict, trying to rectify his past crimes and honor his Holocaust refugee grandfather comes to the kibbutz to find a woman his grandfather loved fifty years before. He is trying to track down the mystery woman and return a brooch to her for his grandfather, but she seems to elude him. Also volunteering on the kibbutz are a few other lost souls trying to turn their lives around. Ulya, an ambitious, Soviet emigre who wants to see New York City; Farid, the lovelorn Palestinian farmhand; Claudette, the French Canadian Catholic with OCD; Ofir the Israeli teenager who wants to escape to America and become a musician; and Ziva, the old Zionist Socialist firebrand who help found the kibbutz.
As we get to know each of the characters we learn about their background and how they ended up on the kibbutz and where they wish they were going. Then we see how the interactions between people and the experiences that happen to them in every day life and dramatically change the course of their
plans. In this novel you need to be careful you get attached to because just like in real life, things don't always end up perfect and happy for everyone. Just when you are routing for a character, they can take a downward spiral and change course and even if you are hoping they will straighten themselves out, just like a real friend, sometimes it seems they cannot save themselves.
The book is fascinating and keeps you glued to the page all the way through. The characters are beautifully developed and as a reader you do begin to like and root for some and some you are not so attached to and hope maybe they will not succeed in their endeavours. Jessamyn Hope also does a wonderful job with her description of the kibbutz and the lifestyle there. She brings to life the idea of all for one and one for all spirit that was there at the beginning. She also brings it full circle and shows how that atmosphere is not as important today as it was for the pioneers.
As the kibbutz goes through a vote to change from everyone working for the common good to a place where each is paid according to their position, Ziva, the original organizer of the kibbutz feels betrayed, "Greed egotism, corruption, have always won out in the end, always except...Here. The kibbutz. The kibbutz is the only long lasting, completely voluntary, socialist utopia in the world. If you want to own a private home or SUV or climb a corporate ladder - fine, by all means, go ahead. Move to Tel-Aviv. Or New York. London, Tokyo, Bombay. Anywhere in the world. But, please, leave this one small corner of the map alone."
Hope also describes the Jews escape from Germany and the refugees coming to Israel in historical detail. She recreates the feelings they had as they developed the farms and planted the orchards and created community. She recounts the feelings also as the United Nations voted to make Israel a state.
Jessamyn Hope has written a wonderful first novel that stays with you long after you have finished the last page.
Friday, June 19, 2015
Kizmino Chronicles: Memoirs of Teenage Holocaust Survival
Author, Nathan Moskowitz has captured both his parents Holocaust experiences and recorded them as a book for posterity. This is very important in terms of historical narratives so the world not only does not forget the atrocities of World War II but also so we have as many of these stories to share with future generations as possible. As the generation who lived through the Holocaust leaves us, we need the first hand written accounts for our grandchildren and their future children to read and share. This is a historical event that should not be forgotten. The documents of the survivors of the Shoah are a tribute to those who did not survivor. Books like this honor their memories.
Gizella, or Gitelle in Yiddish, Moskowitz and Lieb Moskowitz both tell their stories of growing up in Kuzmino, Czechoslovakia. They describe the lives of their families and their town. How people lived and worked in the part of the world. Then they describe their childhoods interrupted by intrusion of the war. Worked into each of their stories are the statistics and facts that have been gathered by Yad Vashem and other historians supplying the background information that puts the personal experiences into historical perspective.
Lieb Moskowitz was born into a modest family living in Kuzmino, a small town. His father was a tailor. They also had their own animals, cows egg laying chickens and geese. Their farming life revolved around the Jewish holidays. Starting at Purim the family starting fattening up the goose and fermenting beets. Then for Passover the goose was eaten and the fat was rendered with enough schmaltz for Passover. The beets were made into borscht. There were fruit trees and a garden with vegetables and potatoes. There was a milk cow that gave them milk, butter and cheese. The family was very self sufficient. Lieb was born in 1928 and went to two schools in his childhood, both a cheder to learn Hebrew and prepare for his Bar Mitzvah and public school for general studies.
The first sign of unrest is that his father is conscripted in the Hungarian army, then he taken away for forced labor and Lieb never sees him again his family receives a postcard from his father reporting that he is being sent to the Russian front. In April 1944, the Hungarian police come and take everyone from the town to a ghetto. Their neighbors who they have lived side by side with ask for their valuables, because they know there will be no return. They are marched to a town three miles away to Munkatch to a brick factory. From here everyone is split up and some are sent by cattle car to Auschwitz.
Gitelle's life follows a similar path. Growing up in the same town she is the second oldest of eight children. She also grows up in as she describes it, "an average house". They have a garden with all kinds of fruit and nut trees. They also have a stable with cows, chickens and geese. In addition they have a vineyard and make their own wine. Her father makes a living buying and selling fields and property.
It is always amazing to me how the stroke of luck or timing is what saves one person and not another during the Shoah. Gitelle explains that when they got out of the cattle car at Auschwitz you were directed to the right or to the left, to die or to live and work. Gitelle's mother and sister were each holding a younger child, they were sent one way and Gitelle and her sister Leah were sent in the other line. They were sent to work. Gitelle describes in detail her memories of the time she spent in hard labor and moving from camp to camp till she was liberated in 1945. Then she tells of her traveling, trying to go home and then to England before coming to America.
Lieb also goes into detail of his memories of life in the concentration camps, of his work details and being moved from to camp to camp. He also tries to go back to Kuzmino, but finds out that cannot be home anymore. He also shares his account of traveling to America.
Also included in this book are all the papers, travel documents, concentration camp arrival and transfer logs, liberation papers and manifestos of inmates. To have all these papers including birth certificates is also impressive. These add historical weight along with the historical documentation from Mauthausen Museum and other places including International Tracing Services and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Even though seventy years have passed and Lieb and Gitelle Moskowitz have had a life filled with children and grandchildren the both have never forgotten the experiences of the dark days of the Shoah. This is an important documentation of their stories. Reading this book is like listening to someone recall their experience first hand. It is almost like you are sitting at the table while they tell you the story, you can hear their old world speech patterns and accents.
Gizella, or Gitelle in Yiddish, Moskowitz and Lieb Moskowitz both tell their stories of growing up in Kuzmino, Czechoslovakia. They describe the lives of their families and their town. How people lived and worked in the part of the world. Then they describe their childhoods interrupted by intrusion of the war. Worked into each of their stories are the statistics and facts that have been gathered by Yad Vashem and other historians supplying the background information that puts the personal experiences into historical perspective.
Lieb Moskowitz was born into a modest family living in Kuzmino, a small town. His father was a tailor. They also had their own animals, cows egg laying chickens and geese. Their farming life revolved around the Jewish holidays. Starting at Purim the family starting fattening up the goose and fermenting beets. Then for Passover the goose was eaten and the fat was rendered with enough schmaltz for Passover. The beets were made into borscht. There were fruit trees and a garden with vegetables and potatoes. There was a milk cow that gave them milk, butter and cheese. The family was very self sufficient. Lieb was born in 1928 and went to two schools in his childhood, both a cheder to learn Hebrew and prepare for his Bar Mitzvah and public school for general studies.
The first sign of unrest is that his father is conscripted in the Hungarian army, then he taken away for forced labor and Lieb never sees him again his family receives a postcard from his father reporting that he is being sent to the Russian front. In April 1944, the Hungarian police come and take everyone from the town to a ghetto. Their neighbors who they have lived side by side with ask for their valuables, because they know there will be no return. They are marched to a town three miles away to Munkatch to a brick factory. From here everyone is split up and some are sent by cattle car to Auschwitz.
Gitelle's life follows a similar path. Growing up in the same town she is the second oldest of eight children. She also grows up in as she describes it, "an average house". They have a garden with all kinds of fruit and nut trees. They also have a stable with cows, chickens and geese. In addition they have a vineyard and make their own wine. Her father makes a living buying and selling fields and property.
It is always amazing to me how the stroke of luck or timing is what saves one person and not another during the Shoah. Gitelle explains that when they got out of the cattle car at Auschwitz you were directed to the right or to the left, to die or to live and work. Gitelle's mother and sister were each holding a younger child, they were sent one way and Gitelle and her sister Leah were sent in the other line. They were sent to work. Gitelle describes in detail her memories of the time she spent in hard labor and moving from camp to camp till she was liberated in 1945. Then she tells of her traveling, trying to go home and then to England before coming to America.
Lieb also goes into detail of his memories of life in the concentration camps, of his work details and being moved from to camp to camp. He also tries to go back to Kuzmino, but finds out that cannot be home anymore. He also shares his account of traveling to America.
Also included in this book are all the papers, travel documents, concentration camp arrival and transfer logs, liberation papers and manifestos of inmates. To have all these papers including birth certificates is also impressive. These add historical weight along with the historical documentation from Mauthausen Museum and other places including International Tracing Services and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Even though seventy years have passed and Lieb and Gitelle Moskowitz have had a life filled with children and grandchildren the both have never forgotten the experiences of the dark days of the Shoah. This is an important documentation of their stories. Reading this book is like listening to someone recall their experience first hand. It is almost like you are sitting at the table while they tell you the story, you can hear their old world speech patterns and accents.
Monday, June 8, 2015
Snow Island
Beautifully written by Katherine Towler, this is really a parallel story of the life of Alice Daggett and George Tibbits. We follow Alice as she grows up on Snow Island, a remote community of the New England coast. It is a solitary place in winter, a busy vacation location in the summer. Alice is 16 years old, as the reader watches her learning about the good and bad things that can happen in life. She has lost her father when the story opens and she is helping run a small store on the island to support her mother, brother and herself. She and her friends are discovering love and relationships as become teenagers. Then World War II breaks out and America is pulled into the fighting. As people come and go on the island, Alice matures and finds out about life. In a parallel story, George Tibbits grew up on the island and left to fight in the first World War. He has also learned a hard lesson about love and loss and he comes back to the island every year in a effort to make peace with his past. As their lives intersect, two very awkward souls may be there to help each other.
The descriptions in this story are wonderful. The reader can picture the scenery of the island and feel the solitude of the place. The feeling of sadness and isolation of living on such a desolate place are palpable.
This is a coming of age novel where we watch Alice grow into a woman as she experiences love and loss and the reality of life in times of war. Alice takes on the responsibility of the family store when her mother is not capable of handling it. She discovers her first love and grows up when the effects of war come to the island. The words paint a picture that is easy to visualize and we are in the end still thinking about Alice and George long after we have closed the book.
The descriptions in this story are wonderful. The reader can picture the scenery of the island and feel the solitude of the place. The feeling of sadness and isolation of living on such a desolate place are palpable.
This is a coming of age novel where we watch Alice grow into a woman as she experiences love and loss and the reality of life in times of war. Alice takes on the responsibility of the family store when her mother is not capable of handling it. She discovers her first love and grows up when the effects of war come to the island. The words paint a picture that is easy to visualize and we are in the end still thinking about Alice and George long after we have closed the book.
Monday, June 1, 2015
A Reunion of Ghosts
..the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children to the third and fourth generations..
A Reunion of Ghosts is a story that seems to be totally based on this premise.
Judith Claire Mitchell, author of A Reunion of Ghosts deserves so much credit for the clever concept she has created for this book. Three sisters living in current day New York City have spent their lives grappling with the inheritance of family guilt. Their Great Grandfather was Lenz Alter, who helped discover Zyklon gas which is later developed into Zyklon B gas used in the extermination of people during World War II. A Jewish scientist whose work helped in the alienation of his people. In each generation before them someone has committed suicide. It is a heavy burden of family guilt they carry with them through life.
This story carries through out many themes for discussion and thought. Is there a collective guilt if an ancestor of yours helped the Holocaust with his scientific discoveries? Is there any glory in suicide? Or is there anything positive in being able to control your destiny by picking the time you want to die instead of living life and letting it take its natural course?
Mitchell mixes a fictional family of characters with real people who lived and worked in Germany in the years leading up to the Great War. Lenz Alter, whose name translates to spring and old age, is part of the group of scientific geniuses of their day. Fictional characters, Lenz and his wife Iris are friends with the Einsteins, Albert and Mileva. They are living and working with the likes of Max Planck, Otto Hahn, and Lise Mietner.
Another interesting issue brought up in the story is the life of women during the 1930s. Most women married and stayed home while their husbands went to work. Women like Lise Mietner gave up family life for their careers. Mitchell shows us the real unhappy marriage of Albert and Mileva Einstein and of Lenz and Iris Alter. Mileva and Iris could have been successful scientists in their own right. They had given up their studies and research when they married. As they watch their husbands succeed along with Marie and Pierre Curie they ruminate on how they have been left behind and left out. They feel they are the great women behind the recognized successful men. "I'm as responsible for special relativity as Albert," Mileva says..."We are Germany's Curies, Albert and I. It's just that no one is allowed to know it."
Iris agrees that she understands every aspect of Lenz's work. She has edited his papers and typed his manuscript. She has made suggestions along the way. Mileva doesn't understand Iris being so calm, "I don't see how you can be so blase about it. Our own husbands. They took our careers. They stood in our light."
So the point is raised numerous times through the book, does the knowledge of the scientist who creates something that can be used for good, in this fertilizer, and is then redeveloped to be used for evil by someone else, Zyklon B, determine his guilt? Then to take it to the next logical step, the patriot asks, "..how is being dead different if it's caused by chlorine gas rather than by flying pieces of metal?' But the sisters also learn that their great grandfather was at the Battle of Ypes, during World War One and actually helped release the fumes. Mitchell writes, "it it like discovering the unexpurgated Brothers Grimm version of a fairy tale you've known only as a Disney cartoon. You thought the wicked step-sister only tried to squeeze her big fat feet into the delicate slipper? Oh no- not so. She actually cut off her toes to manage it."
Plod through all the details and follow along with the tale to the very end for a satisfying conclusion. This is a very interesting story that will keep you thinking and possibly changing your opinion all the way to the end.
A Reunion of Ghosts is a story that seems to be totally based on this premise.
Judith Claire Mitchell, author of A Reunion of Ghosts deserves so much credit for the clever concept she has created for this book. Three sisters living in current day New York City have spent their lives grappling with the inheritance of family guilt. Their Great Grandfather was Lenz Alter, who helped discover Zyklon gas which is later developed into Zyklon B gas used in the extermination of people during World War II. A Jewish scientist whose work helped in the alienation of his people. In each generation before them someone has committed suicide. It is a heavy burden of family guilt they carry with them through life.
This story carries through out many themes for discussion and thought. Is there a collective guilt if an ancestor of yours helped the Holocaust with his scientific discoveries? Is there any glory in suicide? Or is there anything positive in being able to control your destiny by picking the time you want to die instead of living life and letting it take its natural course?
Mitchell mixes a fictional family of characters with real people who lived and worked in Germany in the years leading up to the Great War. Lenz Alter, whose name translates to spring and old age, is part of the group of scientific geniuses of their day. Fictional characters, Lenz and his wife Iris are friends with the Einsteins, Albert and Mileva. They are living and working with the likes of Max Planck, Otto Hahn, and Lise Mietner.
Another interesting issue brought up in the story is the life of women during the 1930s. Most women married and stayed home while their husbands went to work. Women like Lise Mietner gave up family life for their careers. Mitchell shows us the real unhappy marriage of Albert and Mileva Einstein and of Lenz and Iris Alter. Mileva and Iris could have been successful scientists in their own right. They had given up their studies and research when they married. As they watch their husbands succeed along with Marie and Pierre Curie they ruminate on how they have been left behind and left out. They feel they are the great women behind the recognized successful men. "I'm as responsible for special relativity as Albert," Mileva says..."We are Germany's Curies, Albert and I. It's just that no one is allowed to know it."
Iris agrees that she understands every aspect of Lenz's work. She has edited his papers and typed his manuscript. She has made suggestions along the way. Mileva doesn't understand Iris being so calm, "I don't see how you can be so blase about it. Our own husbands. They took our careers. They stood in our light."
So the point is raised numerous times through the book, does the knowledge of the scientist who creates something that can be used for good, in this fertilizer, and is then redeveloped to be used for evil by someone else, Zyklon B, determine his guilt? Then to take it to the next logical step, the patriot asks, "..how is being dead different if it's caused by chlorine gas rather than by flying pieces of metal?' But the sisters also learn that their great grandfather was at the Battle of Ypes, during World War One and actually helped release the fumes. Mitchell writes, "it it like discovering the unexpurgated Brothers Grimm version of a fairy tale you've known only as a Disney cartoon. You thought the wicked step-sister only tried to squeeze her big fat feet into the delicate slipper? Oh no- not so. She actually cut off her toes to manage it."
Plod through all the details and follow along with the tale to the very end for a satisfying conclusion. This is a very interesting story that will keep you thinking and possibly changing your opinion all the way to the end.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)