Bending Toward the Sun: A Mother and Daughter Memoir by Leslie Gilbert-Lurie 2009

"Bending Toward the Sun is a powerful memoir about survival and family. . ." from a review written by Anna Horner in the Baltimore Examiner 10/2/09

Leslie Gilbert-Lurie has written a memoir that captures her mother’s experience as a hidden child during World War II and how that trauma affected her mother’s life and the lives of her children and grandchildren. Gilbert-Lurie divides her story into three sections. The first she calls “In Mom’s Voice (1937-1960),” the second is “My Own Voice (1960-1997),” the third is A Joint Venture (1997-2008).

The author’s mother’s story is the most emotionally compelling of the three sections because of her traumatizing experiences during World War II. During 1942-1944 Rita Gamss and more than a dozen of her extended family lived in the attic of a Polish farmer’ house. She was five years old when they moved in and she remembers many details vividly. The ceiling was so low the adults could not stand upright, and there was no plumbing, heating or electricity in the attic. They could not talk above a whisper and had to keep their movements to a minimum. They had to rely on the farmer and his wife for food which became very scarce, and the farmer often pleaded with them to leave because in sheltering Jews he was jeopardizing the safety of his own family. Life was so difficult during their confinement in the attic that some family members became ill and died.

When, in 1944, they were able to leave, the children who had survived in the attic had stunted growth. Many of them crawled out and had to re-learn how to walk upright. Rita Gamss  returned with what was left of her family to her home but it was clear they could not stay - the family was not safe because the hostilities between the Russians and Germans were still being played out. What started then was a journey through many displaced persons camps where they scoured lists of survivors to find their relatives and where they tried to plan a future.

Eventually they made it to The United States from their last camp in Italy. Life in the states was difficult. Rita Gamss’ father was an Orthodox Jew and refused to take a job that required him to work on Saturdays. Rita was miserable at home with a step-mother she felt wasn’t interested in her. Eventually she met her future husband, married, moved to California and raised a family, but suffered from anxiety and depression, what many researchers now say are aspects of post traumatic stress disorder.

Leslie Gilbert-Lurie’s section is primarily about her relationship with her mother and her conviction that having grown up with a mother who had been so traumatized had affected her own sense of well-being. At various times both mother and daughter went into therapy and Leslie was most interested in the term her therapist used to describe the family life she described to him: he called her family “enmeshed.” The author's mother was always worried about her family's safety. Leslie grew up not wanting to leave home because she learned from her mother not to feel safe. She also lived with a lot of guilt and felt she had to protect her mother whose life had been so full of suffering.

In part III Gilbert-Lurie discusses her inquiries and research. She reports on her daughter's anxieties and  her interviews with her siblings and with cousins of her mother, including those who were still alive who had hid in the attic with her. Gilbert-Lurie and some of her relatives went to Poland to visit their families' homes and to meet with the wife of the farmer who had hidden them. 

This memoir includes many family photos as well as a family tree.

To listen or to read a transcript of an interview on National Public Radio with Rita Lurie and Leslie Gilbert-Lurie, click here.

People
Author Leslie Gilbert-Lurie’s mother’s father’s family
Ruchel Schiffman
     Paya Neshe Schiffman – daughter of Ruchel; married Aharon Gamss
        Tsivia Gamss – daughter Paya Neshe and Avrahom; married Libish Engleberg
            Lola Engleberg – daughter of Tsivia and Libish; married Mike Goodstein
                Barbara and Debbie Goodstein – daughters of Lola and Mike
            Miriam Engleberg – daughter of Tsivia and Libish; married Herbie Silver
                Sheryl  and Lori Silver – daughters of Miriam and Herbie
            Sally Engleberg – daughter of Tsivia and Libish; married Ken Frishberg
                Leslie Frishberg Wolfowitz – daughter of Sally and Ken
            Feigla Engleberg – daughter of Tsivia and Libish
            Paya Neshe Engleberg – daughter of Tsivia and Libish
        Benziyhon (Benny) Gamss – son of Aharon and Paya Neshe; married Dora
            Linda and Eddie Gamss – children of Benny and Dora
        Mordche (Max) Gamss – son of Aharon and Paya Neshe; married Sonia
            Benny Gamms – son of Max and Sonia
        Nachum (Norman) Gamss – son of Aharon and Paya Neshe; married Helen
            Josh and Arthur – sons of Norman and Helen
        Blima Gamss- daughter of Aharon and Paya Neshe
        Avraham Haim (Henry) Gamss – son of Aharon and Paye Neshe; married Chana
        Chaya Shaindl Gamss – daughter of Aharon and Paye Neshe; married Peretz
        Itzhak (Isaac) Gamss – son of Aharon and Paye Neshe; married Leah Weltz; second marriage to Clara Friedman
            Sandra (Sara) Gamss – daughter of Itzhak and Leah; married Milton Weiss
                Lauren Weiss Schneider – daughter of Sandra and Milton
                Karen Weiss – daughters of Sandra and Milton
            Rita (Ruchel) Gamss – daughter of Itzhak and Leah; married Franklin Lurie
                Leslie Lurie – daughter of Rita and Franklin; married Clifford Gilbert; author
                    Mikaela and Gabriel Gilbert – children of Leslie and Clifford
                Gwyn Lurie – daughter of Rita and Franklin; married to Les Firestein
                    Sydney and Noa Lurie Firestein – children of Gwyn and Les
                David Lurie – son of Rita and Franklin – married to Leila
                    Elijah Lurie – son of David and Leila
            Nachum Gamss – son of Itzhak and Leah
            Sam  Gamss – son of Itzhak and Clara; married to Pam
                Mike  and Karen Gamss – children of Sam and Pam
            Brad Gamss – son of Itzhak and Clara; married Nancy
                Ryan Gamss – son of Brad and Nancy

Author Leslie Gilbert-Lurie’s mother’s mother’s family
Nuchem Weltz – married Surah Welz; second marriage to Simma
    Lea Weltz – daughter of Nuchem and Surah; married Itzhak (Isaac) Gamms (see above)
    Masha (Miriam) Weltz – daughter of Nuchem and Surah; married Abraham Seidelbach
        David Seidelbach – son of Masha  and Abraham

Author Leslie Gilbert-Lurie’s father’s family
Leo Lurie – married Gertrude
    Franklin Lurie – son of Leo and Gertrude; married Rita Gamss (see above)
    Buddy – son of Leo and Gertrude; married Renee
Rose – sister of Gertrude; married Rudy


Places
Urzejowice, Poland
Rzechow, Poland
Przeworsk, Poland
Kanczuga Jewish Cemetery, Poland
Humenne displaced person’s camp, Slovakia
Linz Bindermichl displaced person’s camp, Austria
Cremona displaced person’s camp, Italy
New York City, NY
Chicago, Illinois
California



       

               

Mother and Me: Escape from Warsaw 1939 by Julian Padowicz 2008

"Here, Padowicz painstakingly details how his Jewish mother, an unlikely leader if there ever was one, fled the Nazi invasion and guided her family to safety."  from a review by Douglas Lord in Library Journal 5/6/2010

When Hitler invaded Poland, Julian Padowicz was a seven-year-old growing up in Warsaw, the privileged son of a well-connected family. Immediately his step-father and uncles joined the Polish army and before he knew it his mother gathered him up, and along with her two sisters-in-law and their children they fled Warsaw in a truck commandeered from the family factory. They took food and money and they sewed their jewelry into secret compartments in their clothes.

Padowicz, who finally immigrated to the U.S. with his mother, tells this story with great skill, telling it as a seven-year-old would have experienced it: his fears, his confusion, the alternating love and disdain he had for his mother. He has included comic moments that remind us that despite the hardships they endured, he was, after all, only seven and not totally aware of the precariousness of his situation. Part of his confusion and humor has to do with his being Jewish but his having been brought to church and taught Catholic prayers by his beloved governess who spent more time with him than his mother did. His being Jewish in a Catholic country is a thread throughout the story and he is constantly trying to sort this out.

His use of dialogue reflects a talent for fiction; it is clear he is dramatizing scenes he remembers and fleshes them out with believable dialogue. He says in the beginning that he doesn’t remember everyone accurately and since he experienced those he met along the way the way a seven-year-old would have experienced them, he has changed the names of characters who are important to the story he is telling, but who are not fully formed figures in his mind.

One of the points his story demonstrates is that leaving Warsaw was the right choice, but that leaving in and of itself did not guarantee survival. Money went only so far when there was little or no food to be had. You get the sense that his mother and his aunts did everything they could to protect their children and to keep them  from being scared, but they often were desperate for food and firewood. Padowicz overheard conversations between his mother and other adults that helped him to know more than he was being told.

This memoir is a tribute to his mother who took risks that paid off for both of them, risks her sisters-in-law were not ready to take. When she needed to deal with the Russians they encountered everywhere, she spoke to them in perfect Russian, telling them her mother came from Moscow. Befriending, flattering and flirting with all authorities who she thought might be able to help her, she also tried to play on their sympathy for a mother and child traveling by themselves. In this way, along with her cash, she got them out of Ukraine and into Hungary which was still free. This is where this part of the story ends. The continuation of their story is in Ship in the Harbor which was published in 2009.

To read an obituary of  the author's mother Barbara (Basia) Rozenfeld Padowicz Weisbrem Gabard click here.

People
Moses Rosenfeld
    Pavew Rozenfeld – son of Moses
    Basia (Barbara)  Rozenfeld – daughter of Moses; married to Natan Padowicz; second husband Lolek (Leon) Weisbrem
        Yulek (Julian) Padowicz – son of Basia and Nathan; author; married to Donna
            Karen, Joanne, Nadine Padowicz – daughters of Julian 

Edna Tishman – sister of Lolek Weisbrem
    Fredek Tishman – son of Edna and Lolek
Paula Herbstein – sister-in-law of Basia
    Sonya Herbstein – her daughter

Places
Lodz, Poland
Warsaw, Poland
Budapest, Hungary
Lvov, Ukraine












       

Memory by Philippe Grimbert published in French in 2004 with the title The Secret; published in English in 2007

"Memory, deserved winner of the Prix Goncourt, may well take its place among the best of the "autofictions," that particular French genre that combines the tenets of autobiography with the freedoms afforded by the novel." from a review by Alexis Soloski  in the Village Voice 2/26/08

Philippe Grimbert (b. 1948), a psychoanalyst and novelist born to Jewish French Holocaust survivors, wrote this spare but powerful autobiographical novel based on his own  life and what he learned about his parents’ lives. Like many children of survivors, he both knew and did not know the story of his family’s past. It was not discussed, but it was in the air.

As Grimbert tells the story, when he turned fifteen he inadvertently found a “clue” in the attic and from then on the story of his family’s past unraveled. Some of what he learned was that his athletic father identified more as a Frenchman than as a Jew; he did not believe until it was too late that he would suffer at the hands of the Nazis. His father was sure that the Nazis were only interested in rounding up those Jews who were foreigners, those who had fled Eastern Europe ahead of the Germans and had poured over the borders into France.

Much of the novel is the story of the extended family’s flight from Paris in France’s occupied zone south to France’s free zone. First the men of the family fled; then the women and children followed. Grimbert tells the story with much insight, and also with much suspense.

Grimbert’s psychoanalytic training seems put to good use, though it is not obtrusive. It is quite clear that he feels knowing the story helped him better understand his parents and it also helped him form a more authentic identity.

He ends the story with a contemporary anecdote about finding himself in a pet cemetery with his daughter. The beloved pets eulogized on gravestones by relatives of Laval, a collaborator in the Vichy government, elicit an anger in him that is informed by what he knows about his family’s past.

To see a trailer for the French film made from the novel, click here.
To read an interesting article in which Grimbert talks about why he wrote his family story as fiction and in which he discusses what is fictionalized, click here.

Grimbert says he has changed names in the novel. He also says he father changed the family name from Grinberg to Grimbert.

The Boy: A Holocaust Story by Dan Porat 2010

"[The Boy] is a gripping, harrowing Holocaust story," from a review entitled, 'The Ghetto, the Nazis, and One Small Boy,' by Joseph Berger on Lens, a New York Times blog 10/12/2010

Dan Porat, whose parents fled Germany before the war, is a professor at Hebrew University. Because his specialty is visual representations of the Holocaust, he became especially interested in the iconic photo of a young Jewish boy being rounded up by the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto.This photo is on the cover of this book.

This book is not a memoir, but Porat read many memoirs as part of his research.  His original intention was to try to uncover the identity of the young boy, a task others have attempted as well, but he states in his introduction that after completing all the research, he has no definite answers to the boy’s identity. But he uses this picture to examine some of the history of the Warsaw ghetto through the lives of five people: three Nazi agents and two Jewish ghetto residents.

The most important of the three Nazi agents he focuses on is SS General Jergen Stroop who was sent by the Nazis to deal with the ghetto uprising. After leveling the ghetto, he wrote what came to be known as the Stroop Report for which Stroop provided the title: “The Warsaw Ghetto Is No More.” The report included many photos to document Stroop’s accomplishments, including the one of the little boy. The report was sent to Himmler, and Stroop was awarded the Iron Cross which he coveted.

Porat also tells the story of Austrian SS officer Franz Konrad who was in charge of the appropriation of Jewish property in the ghetto and instrumental in its liquidation. And he tells the story of the only one of the three who actually appears in the photo: SS soldier Josef Blosche can be seen in the background aiming his gun at the little boy who has his hands raised.

The two Jewish residents whose stories he tells are Rivkah Trapkovits Farber and Tsvi Nussbaum. Rivkah Trapkovits Farber’s connection to the photo is tenuous. She wrote a memoir which has been published in Israel that suggests to the author that she might have been a witness to the roundup documented in the photo. Rivkah Trapkovits Farber’s story is one version of many such lives lived in the ghetto and in hiding. Her story is remarkable, starting with her active membership in Kibbutz Lodz-Borochov. When Lodz was invaded, she and other members fled to a similar Kibbutz in the Warsaw ghetto, but before long those who congregated in the ghetto kibbutz were living a precarious life which included hiding from Nazis who were searching for resisters and violators of ghetto rules. Their hiding place eventually exposed, she and others were herded onto cattle cars destined for the Majdanek concentration camp. But Rivkah jumped off the train and lived by her wits, posing as a peasant woman until the war was over.

There has been much debate over the years about whether Tsvi Nussbaum, now living in New York City, is the boy in the photo. Porat tells the story of the Nussbaum family, how Tsvi came to be orphaned when his parents were sent to death camps, how he went with an aunt to the Hotel Polski on the Aryan side of Warsaw where they were promised exit visas, how the Nazis had tricked them, rounded them up and carted them away, how he managed to survive the rest of the war, how after the war he was one of 186 orphans who sailed to Palestine on the Mataroa.

In Porat’s slim, well documented, book he gives a textured account of the convergence of a number of disparate people in the Warsaw ghetto. The significance of the photo is that the unidentified Jewish boy represents all of the innocent victims of Hitler’s Final Solution.

This memoir includes A Glossary of Terms, A Prologue, and an essay called On Photographs, History, and Narrative Style, It also includes a lot of documentation which appear in endnotes which list many memoirs, especially in Hebrew that Porat consulted. There is also a very helpful Index.

To watch a discussion with Dan Porat about his book that took place in Skokie, Illinois, click here.
To read an interesting article that researches the various possibilities surrounding the identity of the boy, click here.

To view the photos of the Warsaw ghetto included in the Stroop report, click here.

People
Hannah Blumenthal Porat – author’s mother
Dan Porat – son of Hannah; author

Erna Hamlet
Felix Fechenbach – married to Irma
Shmuel Trapkovits – married Devorah; second wife Sheindal
Dina Trapkovits – daughter of Samuel and Devorah
Nissan Trapkovits – son of Samuel and Devorah
Baruch Trapkovits – son of Samuel and Devorah
Rivkah Trapkovits – daughter of Samuel and Devorah; married to Fischel Farber
Haim and Jacob Farber – sons of Rivkah and Fischel
Zelda and Ephraim Trapkovits – children of Samuel and Sheindal
Haim Farber
Fischel Farber – Haim’s son; husband of Rivkah Trapkovits (see above)
Itzhak Katzenelson
Peshka Harman
Shmuel Greenberg
Moshe Rubenchik
Tsvi Kutzer
Chaim Kaplan
Emmanuel Ringelblum
Antek (Itshak) Zuckerman
Lunka Kozibrodzka
Aron Schultz
Jozio Schultz – son of Aron
Jacob and Ziporah Nussbaum
Yosef Nussbaum – son of Jacob and Ziporah; married to Chana
Tsvi Nussbaum – son of Yosef and Chana
Ilan Nussbaum – son of Yosef and Chana
Chana Nussbaum – daughter of Jacob and Ziporah; married to Shulim (Ziporah’s brother)
Tsivyah Lubetkin
Antek Zucherman
Zacharia Artstein
Malka Hornstein
Bluma Wiszogrodski
Rukhele Lauschvits
Thaddeus Stabholz
Helik Birenbaum
Halina Birenbaurm – sister of Helik
Lolek Skosowski
Adam Zurawin
David Guzik
Jan Rolnik – married to Ella Sendowska
Artur Rolnik – son of Jan and Ella
Danusia Rolnik – daughter of Jan and Ella
Helena Goldberg
David and Sophie Goetzel-Leviathan
Micky
Heinz Schenk
Heinz Galinski
Mark Berkowitz
David Margolick
Lucjan Dobroszycki
Sue Fishkoff
Aron Glanz-Leyeles

Places
Frankfurt, Germany
Israel
New York City, NY
Hamburg, Germany
Berlin, Germany
Hillersleben, Germany
Kibbutz Lodz-Borochov, Lodz, Poland
Lomza, Poland
Grochow, Poland
Sandomierz, Poland
Warsaw Ghetto, Poland
Hotel Polski, Warsaw, Poland

Walbrzych, Poland
Kibbutz Mishmar ha-Sharon, Israel

A Film Unfinished: The Warsaw Ghetto as Seen Through Nazi Eyes written and directed by Yael Hersonski 2010 (documentary)

In “A Film Unfinished,” the Israeli director Yael Hersonski embarks on a critical analysis of “Das Ghetto” that is remarkable as much for its speculative restraint as for its philosophical reach.  from a review in the New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis 8/17/2010

Most of this documentary, by the Israeli writer/director Yael Hersonski, is archival footage shot in the Warsaw Ghetto  filmed by photographers working for the Nazis but never released.  Discovered in a warehouse in 1954, various clips have circulated and been incorporated into other documentaries. There are scenes of the Jewish head of the ghetto Adam Czerniakow receiving Orthodox Jews in his office, and scenes of an elaborate dinner held in his home. There is a segment that shows a circumcision. Also included are street shots of impoverished, emaciated Jewish children and adults begging, while well-dressed residents of the ghetto walk by seemingly ignoring them. And there are shots of corpses lying unclaimed in front of shops and in gutters as ghetto residents go about their business.

It was clear that many scenes, especially the indoor ones, were staged. Adam Czerniakow took part in the staged scenes but kept diaries which are quoted in the documentary explaining the fraud that that was being filmed. In 1998 more definitive evidence that confirmed the staging was found on a reel languishing in a warehouse that shows multiple takes of some scenes, demonstrating that some were rearranged and re-shot so that the Nazis could maximize the effect they were after.

At the same time that we are watching the film and the outtakes, five Warsaw ghetto survivors who now live in Israel are also watching. The archival film is stopped occasionally to get their reaction to what they are seeing. Some add details that they remember.

Although the film was shot for propaganda purposes and much of its contents cannot be trusted, the roving camera allows you to get see many of its residents in close-ups and in crowd scenes and it's possible to get a sense of what parts of the ghetto looked like.

To watch a very interesting Public Broadcasting Interview with the writer/director, Yael Hersonski, who discusses the making of her film, click here.

People
Hanna Avrutzki
Luba Gewisser
Aliza Vitis-Shomron
Jurek Plonski
Shula Zeder
Adam Czerniakow
Emanuel Ringelblum
Chaim Kaplan
Abraham Lewin
Rachel Auerbach
Jonas Turkow
Ben Shem
Hersh Waser

Places
Warsaw Ghetto
Israel

The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival by Sara Tuvel Bernstein 1997

"A striking Holocaust memoir, posthumously published, by a Romanian Jew with an unusual story to tell." from Kirkus Reviews August, 15, 1997

Introductory chapters in this memoir about Seren (Sara) Tuvel’s early years set the scene for what is to come. Seren was the seventh of her father’s eleven children. Her mother, who was the widower Abraham Tuvel’s second wife, raised his six children and the two of them had five more. Their home was a gathering place for all of the children and grandchildren.

Seren was a good student who won a scholarship to continue on at the gymnasium in Bucharest but her father, a traditional observant Jew, said no. She defied him and moved to Bucharest but she was not happy in school and quit, apprenticing herself to a dressmaker where she learned how to sew intricate high-end fashion bought by the nobility. This skill, as well as her intelligence, foresight and resourcefulness, served her well as she fought to stay alive both in the years before and during World War II. 

With the steady march of Hitler into neighboring countries, the bucolic setting of Valea Uzului in Romania, the site of her father’s job managing a mill, soon became a memory. Jews living near the border were accused of spying and while Seren was home she and her father were arrested and jailed in Bucharest. When she was eventually freed, she made her way to Budapest, Hungary where she and other relatives thought they’d be safer. However in March of 1944 she and her sister were captured and forced to join a labor detail. The author eventually ended up in Ravensbruck, amongst the first group of Jewish women in this camp that the Nazis had set aside for common criminals, gypsies, Communists, and others who they saw as political agitators. She was 26 years old.

Four months later she and the small group of women who still survived the punishing conditions of Ravensbruck were moved to Turkheim, a division of Dachau, then to Bergau where they were eventually rescued by the Red Cross. She describes the terrible conditions she worked under when she was a member of a forced labor detail. The conditions got only worse as she was transported from camp to camp. She was sent to recuperate at St Ottelein Convent which had been turned into a post-war hospital and then volunteered to teach sewing to displaced women at an ORT school in the next town. There she met her future husband who was teaching tailoring.

She concludes with their unsuccessful search for surviving family members, but then describes a joyous reunion with relatives who were living in Israel after she had assumed they had all been killed. By this time she and her husband were living in Montreal. A final chapter by her daughter, Marlene Bernstein Samuels, provides information about the later years of her mother’s life including the writing of her memoir.

To read an article about Romania and the Holocaust, click here.

People
Abraham Tuvel
    Herman Tuvel – son of Abraham and first wife; married to Tamara
        Miksha Tuvel – son of Herman and Tamara
            Herman Tuvel – son of Miksha
        Ernie Tuvel – son of Herman and Tamara
        Joseph Tuvel – son of Herman and Tamara
    Meyer Tuvel – son of Abraham and first wife; married to Lottie
    Mendel Tuvel – son of Abraham and first wife
    Berta Tuvel – daughter of Abraham and first wife; married Morris
        Yosef – son of Berta
    Louise Tuvel – daughter of Abraham and first wife; married Bela
    Rose Tuvel – daughter of Abraham and first wife, married Eugene
        Emma, Alfred (Yakov), Magda, Elena, Estelle – children of Rose and Eugene
    Shlomo Tuvel – son of Abraham and Miriam; second wife Zella
    Eliezer Tuvel – son of Abraham and Miriam; married to Sylvia
        Judith and Rivkah Tuvel – daughters of Eliezer and Sylvia
    Seren (Sara) Tuvel – daughter of Abraham and Miriam; married Meyer Bernstein; author
        Jacob Bernstein – son of Seren (Sara) and Meyer; married Linda
            Rebecca Bernstein
        Marlene Bernstein Samuels – daughter of Seren (Sara) and Meyer
           
    Zipporah Tuvel - daughter of Abraham and Miriam
    Esther Tuvel – daughter of Abraham and Miriam; married Sidney (Sigmund)

Friends
Ira Bergman
    Ruth Bergman
Reuben Handler
    Leah Handler – daughter of Reuben
Samuel Stein
Joshua Stein – Samuel’s brother
Ellen (Helen) Weise
Lily Cohen
Zora Cohen – Lily’s sister

Places
Fulehaza,Romania
Lunca de Mijloc, Romania
Bucharest, Romania
Galati,Romania
Valea Uzului, Romania
Reghinal-Sasesc, Romania
Brasov, Romania
Miercurea-Cuic, Romania
Satu-Mare, Romania
Ravensbruck Concentration Camp, Germany
Turkheim, Dachau, Germany
Bergau, Austria
St. Ottelein Abbey, Emming, Germany
Feldafing, Germany
Schwabhausen, Germany

In My Mother’s House: A Daughter’s Story by Kim Chernin, first published in 1983; HarperPerennial edition with new forward by author 1994

"It is the ideological aspect that distinguishes this memoir from more familiar stories of daughter-mother resentment."  from a review by Diane McWhorter in the New York Times 8/21/1983

Kim Chernin (b. 1940) spent seven years writing this fascinating memoir whose focus is her mother Rose’s life as an active and prominent member of the Communist Party and the author's relationship with her mother. To tell their story, the author covers four generations of Chernin women: Rose’s mother Perle, Rose, Kim herself, and Kim’s daughter Larissa.

Kim Chernin’s mother Rose told stories about her life that the author recorded in discrete chronological chapters. However, interspersed are chapters that take place in the “present” in which mother and daughter rehash and sort out the various strands of Rose’s stories, some of which Kim had never heard. The early chapters describe Rose's early life, how she and her family were part of the mass migration of Jews from Eastern Europe who came to America seeking a better life. Rose crossed the Atlantic with her mother and three younger siblings when her father, who had migrated several years earlier, sent for them.  

But life wasn’t easy. Their father mistreated their mother and then abandoned them. Perle barely learned English, hardly ever left the house, and, as is typical in many immigrant families, depended on her children, especially her oldest, Rose, to negotiate life in the United States for her. Perle suffered from depression and was institutionalized several times.

Rose was attracted to learning and loved school. When it was time for Rose to enter high school World War I was being fought. Luckily the high school day started early and ended early so that high school students could work in the factories. Rose was able to go to high school and work after school to help support the family. In school she met her future husband, Paul Kusnitz, who introduced her to socialism.

The memoir is then taken up with Rose’s long involvement with the Communist party, the committees she formed and ran, her travels and her speaking, and the time she spent in jail in the 1950’s. A major emphasis is the effect her work had on her family, especially her daughter, Kim, who grew up in the party but later became disillusioned. Rose’s  lifelong devotion and single-minded commitment to the Communist Party made it very difficult to accept her daughter’s turning away.

In order to write the book the author conducted extensive interviews with her mother. The memoir delineates their difficulties but the interviews and subsequent conversations allowed them the opportunity to listen to each other. Kim Chernin paints a picture of her mother as a strong woman who always kept in mind the difficulties her immigrant mother faced. Writing the memoir provided the author with the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of her mother’s roots and the external events that helped shape her world view.

The memoir includes photos.

To read a piece that Rose Chernin wrote in 1949 about organizing the unemployed in the Bronx in the 1930's, click here.


Family
Perle Chernin
    Rose (Rochele) Chernin – daughter of Perle; married Paul Kusnitz
        Nina Chernin – daughter of Rose and Paul
        Kim Chernin – daughter of Rose and Paul; marrried David Netboy; author
            Larissa Chernin – daughter of Kim and David
    Celia (Zipora, Sylvia) Chernin – daughter of Perle; married Harry Horowitz
        Ethel Horowitz – daughter of Celia and Harry
        Pim and Sandor – twin sons of Celis; half brother of Ethel
        Michael – son of Celia; half brother of Ethel
    Gertrude (Gita) Chernin – daughter of Perle
        Vida – daughter of Gertrude
    Milton (Mikhail) Chernin – son of Perle
    Lillian Chernin – daughter of Perle; marries Norman
        Terry and Paulie – children of Lillian and Norman
Gita Chernin – father’s sister
Sonia Chernin – father’s cousin

Paul Kusnitz – married to Rose Chernin (see above)
Barney Kusnitz – Paul’s brother; married to Sara
Sol Kusnitz
Sam Kusnitz
Max – brother of Paul; married to Anne

Acquaintances
Sonia Bloom
Peter Blume – Sonia’s brother
Sarah Kahen
    Jesse Kahen
Ben Gold
Sam Kichle
Al Levy   
David Thorne
August Thorne – David’s brother

Places
Chasnik, Russia
Staten Island, NYC
Bronx, NYC
Waterbury, Conn.
Canonsville, New York
Los Angeles, Calif.
Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, Calif.
Berkeley, Calif.
Binghamton State Hospital, Binghamton NY
Camp Wo-Chi-Ca, Port Murray, New Jersey

The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss by Edmund de Waal 2010

"[T]he intelligence and creativity with which de Waal constructs a family history are what make this special book so supremely ­winning." from a review by Megan Buskey in the New York Times 1/28/2011

Edmund De Waal (b. 1964) was raised in the Anglican Church. But he knew that he had one Jewish grandparent: his paternal grandmother, Elizabeth, had been a Jewish Ephrussi. Her great-grandfather Chaim Efrussi moved from Berdichev to Odessa where he raised his family and made his fortune.  Chaim (whose name became Charles Joachim Ephrussi) traded mainly in wheat, but eventually his sons, who set off for Paris and Vienna, went into banking and became powerful and influential businessmen. 

De Waal is fascinated by the large colorful Ephrussi family. Joachim’s grandson Charles became an influential art collector in Paris and had a collection of 264 netsuke, miniature Japanese carvings. De Waal traces the journey of the netsuke as a way to tell the story of the Ephrussis who were citizens of the world. The collection moved amongst family members from Japan to Paris to Vienna, back to Japan, and then to England when the author inherited them.

We read about six generations of Ephrussis. De Waal spends one section on some of the Paris Ephrussis where he recreates the zeitgeist of the second half of nineteenth century Paris. He describes the Rue de Monceau with its large mansions owned by wealthy Jewish families, the Ephrussis being one of them. We see Joachim’s grandson Charles immersed in the art world, a friend and business associate of now-famous Impressionist painters. De Waal vividly demonstrates how Charles's being Jewish, no matter how assimilated, affected his life. And we also read about his acquisition of the netsuke collection.

Viktor Ephrussi is the author’s great-grandfather. Because this is the author’s branch of the family, he spends a lot of time on the Vienna Ephrussis. The counterpart to the Rue de Monceau in Paris is the Ringstrasse (often referred to as Zionstrasse) where the Ephrussis lived in a imposing mansion. He paints a detailed portrait of Viktor and Emmy and the cultured, affluent life they lived in Vienna, a city hospitable to Jews during the reign of Kaiser Franz Josef. But always there was anti-Semitism just below the surface. Soon they were embroiled in World War I, and as the author notes, they were in the wrong country; they were on the losing side. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was dissolved.

De Waal takes us through the build-up to World War II, the rising anti-Semitism, the Anchluss, and the effects of the war on his branch of the Vienna Ephrussis. We read about the fate of his extended family members who scattered, if they could get out, to all corners of the globe ahead of Hitler’s murderous intentions. He sketches in the post-war life of his grandmother who married a de Waal, and the memoir ends where it started - in Japan where his grandmother's brother Iggy lived, the last owner of the netsuke. Great uncle Iggy bequeaths them to de Waal.

What we have in this carefully researched memoir is European history of the late nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth as seen through the lives of the wealthy, privileged members of the Ephrussi family. We see them at the height of their power socializing with prominent artists and writers, businessmen and titled nobility. But then we see that their wealth did not protect them; that being Jewish was their defining trait no matter how much influence or assets they had had, no matter that many Ephrussis had assimilated, had married Christians or had converted.

To watch Edmund de Waal discuss the process of writing this memoir, click here.

To read a very interesting in-depth article from the Economist about the process and the consequences of  writing of this book, click here.

People
Author’s father’s family   
Charles (Chaim) Joachim Ephrussi (Efrussi) – married Belle (Balbina) Levenson; second marriage to Henriette Halperson
    Leon (Leib) Ephrussi – son of Charles and Belle; married Mina Landau
        Jules Ephrussi – son of Leon and Mina; married Fanny Pfeiffer
        Ignace Ephrussi – son of Leon and Mina
        Charles Ephrussi – son of Leon and Mina
        Betty Ephrussi – daughter of Leon and Mina; married Max Hirsch Kann
            Fanny Kann – daughter of Betty and Max; married Theodore Reinach
                Leon Reinach – married to Beatrice de Camondo
    Ignace (Eizek) von Ephrussi – son of Charles and Belle; married Emilie Porgees
        Stefan von Ephrussi – son of Ignace and Emilie; married Estiha
        Anna von Ephrussi – daughter of Ignace and Emilie; married Baron Herz von Hertenreid
        Viktor von Ephrussi – son of Ignace and Emilie; married Emmy Schey von Koromla
             Elisabeth von Ephrussi – daughter of Viktor and Emmy; married Hendrick de Waal
                Victor de Waal – son of Elisabeth and Hendrick; married Esther Moir
                    John de Waal – son of Victor and Esther
                    Alexander de Waal – son of Victor and Esther
                    Edmund de Waal – son of Victor and Esther; married to Susan Chandler; author
                        Benjamin de Waal – son of Edmund and Susan
                        Matthew de Waal – son of Edmund and Susan
                        Anna de Waal – daughter of Edmund and Susan
                    Thomas de Waal – son of Victor and Esther   
            Gisela von Ephrussi – daughter of Viktor and Emmy; married Alfredo Barr
            Ignace von Ephrussi – son of Viktor and Emmy; in a relationship with Jiro Sugiyama
            Rudolf von Ephrussi – son of Viktor and Emmy; married to Virginia Bailey
                Constant Hendrik de Waal – son of Elisabeth and                
    Michel Ephrussi – son of Charles and Henriette; married Lilliane Beer
    Maurice Ephrussi – son of Charles and Henriette; married Charlotte Beatrice de Rothschild
    Therese Ephrussi – daughter of Charles and Henriette; married Leon Fould
    Marie Ephrussi – daughter of Charles and Henriette; married Guy de Percin

Alphonse de Rothchild – father of Beatrice, who is the wife of Maurice Ephrussi (see above)
Joseph Reinach – brother of Thomas who is the husband of Fanny Kann (see above)

Family members of Emmy Schey von Koromla who married Viktor von Ephrussi (see above)
Paul Schey von Koromla – married to Evelina Landenaur; parents of Emmy
    Philippe (Pips)Schey von Koromla – son of Paul and Evelina; brother of Emmy; married to Olga 
    Eva Schey von Koromla – daughter of Paul and Evelina; sister of Emmy; married Thuroczy de Also-Korosteg et Tuocz-Szent-Milhaly
    Gerry Schey von Koromla – daughter of Paul and Evelina; sister of Emmy; married Baron Weiss von Weiss und Horstenstein
Arthur Schniztler – cousin of Emmy Schey von Koromla
Herman and Witold Schey von Koromla – twin brothers; cousins of Emmy Shey von Koromla
Anna von Leiben – Emmy’s great aunt
Fritz von Leiben – a cousin of Emmy’s children
Marie-Louise von Motesiczky (Piz) – cousin of Emmy
Frank and Mitzi Wooster – cousins of Emmy

Acquaintances
Bernhardt Altmann
Louise Cahen
Egon Friedell
Rudolf Gutmann
    Marianne Gutmann – Rudolf’s daughter
Karl Kraus
Fanny Loewenstein

Places
Berdichev, Ukraine
Leopoldstradt, Vienna, Austria
Vienna Austria
Kovecses, Czechoslovakia
Rue de Monceau, Paris
Paris, France
Odessa, Russia

An Exclusive Love: A Memoir by Johanna Adorjan

“'Perhaps you live a longer, happier life if you don’t look back so much,' the author writes at one point. The reader can be thankful that Johanna Adorján didn’t quite believe her own counsel." from a review by David Michael in Book, an online review of the New Republic 6/22/11

This slim but powerful memoir by Johanna Adorjan (b. 1971) is an investigation and meditation on the double suicide of her paternal grandparents, Veronika and Istvan Adorjan, Jewish Hungarian refugees who lived in post-war Denmark. They were both survivors of the Holocaust and the Soviet invasion of Hungary and ended their lives in October of 1991 when the author’s grandfather was approaching death due to heart disease.

There are many interesting pieces to this story. Neither her grandmother nor her grandfather would ever talk about their lives during the war. Adorjan describes her grandparents as having been assimilated Jews who lived in Budapest when Hitler invaded Hungary. Her grandfather was deported to Mauthausen; her grandmother survived because she had forged papers, but both her grandmother’s parents were shot. Despite conversations with her father, other relatives, and interviews with many surviving friends from before and during the war, she learned virtually nothing about their wartime experience.

Another interesting aspect of this memoir is that it is as much an investigation into aspects of the author's identity as it is an attempt to understand her grandparents. Adorjan relates that she herself had never thought much about her Jewish heritage. Adorjan’s mother is not Jewish which made Adorjan’s connection to her Jewish identity even more remote. She was amazed that a trip to Israel had such a strong emotional impact on her, surprised at how at home she felt there.

Throughout, Adorjan asks herself insightful questions. For example, since her grandparents were unwilling to talk about their experiences during the war, what gives her the right to try to learn about their experiences by talking to relatives and friends? Is it an invasion of privacy even though her grandparents are dead?  Is it possible to ever understand another person? She cites statistics of Jewish suicides during the war in Budapest. She talks about the suicides of survivors after the war and puzzles over her grandparents’ double suicide 45 years later, hoping that what she might learn about their lives, especially their wartime experiences, will provide explanations, will help her to know them better.

To read an article in Haaretz about a study of suicide rates amongst Holocaust survivors in Israel, click here.

People
Sandor Adorjan (formerly Samuel Adler) – married Frida Mayersberg
            Istvan Adorjan – son of Sandor and Frida; married Veronica (Vera) Fellner
                                    Johanna Adorjan – granddaughter of Istvan and Frida; author
                                    David and Gabriel Adorjan – grandsons of Istvan and Frida
Josef Adorjan – brother of Sandor
            Istvan Adorjan  - son of Josef
Elemer and Gizella Fellner – parents of Veronica Fellner Adorjan (see above)

Places
Budapest, Hungary
Zalaegerszeg, Hungary
Charlottelund, Denmark
Melbourne, Australia
Munich, Germany
Berlin, Germany
Mauthausen, Austria
Gunskirchen Lager, Austria