I Love Gootie by Max Apple 1998

"Gootie left her grandson a rich inheritance of Yiddish culture and folk wisdom, and a love of storytelling. Apple’s biography is thus also about the source of his unique writer’s mind; listening to Gootie, it’s easy to see the origin of his ability to spin a good story. Fresh, affectionate, and moving."
 from a review in Kirkus Reviews 5/9/1998

In this charming memoir, a sequel to Apple’s popular memoir, Roommates: My Grandfather’s Story, the author writes about his grandmother, Sheyni Gootkie, whose family name became Gootie.  In the introduction he explains that in his book promotion tours for Roommates members of the audience would frequently ask questions about his grandmother and he would put them off by saying she was a private person, she always stayed at home, there wasn’t that much to say. But at one point he realized that in fact if he summoned up her Yiddish voice, her life and the stories she told became quite vivid. And he understood that her story telling was a gift she gave him.

Max Apple (b. 1941) grew up in an old-fashioned extended immigrant Jewish family. He and his two sisters lived with their parents and their mother’s Yiddish-speaking, religiously observant parents, Rocky and Gootie Goodstein, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Apple, the younger of the three children and fluent in Yiddish, was particularly attached to both of his grandparents. His grandmother stayed up with him at night while he did his homework at the kitchen table, and it was during these late hours that they forged their bond. She lived in her mind in the shtetl Serei in Lithuania and recreated life in the shtetl with great vividness, enthralling Apple with tales of her family and the community. He especially enjoyed the long involved story she told of her betrothal and marriage to his grandfather, and he remembered vividly her stories about terrifying pogroms.

Gootie never fully adapted to American life. She shopped in America, she had a bank account, but she never learned much English and interacted mostly with family – predominantly with Max’s family but she also had three brothers nearby. She had old-world values, didn’t trust much of what modern America had to offer, and tried to impose her values on the author by inventing a future for him and urging him to live it. Education was unimportant to her. She imagined him being economically secure as a store owner, wearing a suit with a vest outfitted with a gold pocket watch, and she pressed her points. When he was still in high school and he told her thought he’d become a printer, she was not pleased. She didn’t want him dirtying his hands on someone else’s machines. If he owned a store, she told him, he’d only have one machine to deal with – a cash register.

The tension between the old world and the new – Apple’s love and respect for his grandparents, but his also understanding that he was committed to living in a different world – is what drives both memoirs. In I Love Gootie his grandmother’s enduring love for him is palpable. It is clear that he realizes how much he is in her debt.

To read an earlier post of a review of Max Apple's Roommates, click here.

To read an interesting first-hand account of returning to Serei, Lithuania in 1998 which includes photos written by Chana Rosen, click here.

People
Beryl Leib – Rachel Leah
Joseph – son of Beryl Leib and Rachel Leah; married Sarah
    Louis - son of Beryl Leib and Rachel Leah
    Leo – son of Beryl Leib and Rachel Leah; married to Yachy
    Eserkey - son of Beryl Leib and Rachel Leah
    Sheyni Gootkie – daughter of Beryl Leib and Rachel Leah; married Yerachmiel Goodstein
        Mottele (Max) Goodstein – son of Sheyni and Yerachmiel
        Bashy Goodstein – married Sam Apple
            Max Apple – son of Bashy and Sam; married Talya Fishman; author
            Bailey – daughter of Bashy and Sam
            Maxine – daughter of Bashy and Sam
Friends
Sol Levinsky
Ben Rosen

Places
Serei, Lithuania
Yagistov, Poland
Odessa, Russia
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Muskegon, Michigan
Alma, Michigan

Roommates: My Grandfather’s Story by Max Apple 1994

"The bare facts seem to bespeak yet another Jewish family comedy of interference and smothering, but Max Apple's affection for the old man tells another story entirely." from a review in the New York Times by Andrew Bergman, June 19,1994

In this enjoyable and moving memoir, Max Apple (b. 1941) recreates his younger self. He grew up in a home in Grand Rapids, Michigan that included his immediate family and his immigrant maternal grandparents. Apple’s grandfather, nicknamed Rocky, lived a life that was totally entwined in that of his only grandson. In some ways it was a mutual admiration society, but it involved constant battles.

Max Apple and his sisters grew up speaking Yiddish in a home full of the tension between the Old World and the new. The family observed Kashrut, getting their meat monthly from Detroit, and they never ate out. According to Rocky, a truly educated Jewish boy learned Hebrew and studied the Talmud, a copy of which Rocky seemed to always have with him for his own study. Rocky was devoted to the local synagogue minyan but could only get Max to go to synagogue with him on Saturdays. Max edged toward assimilation by becoming absorbed in baseball and the intricacies of the game.

Rocky lived until he was well over 100, and because he outlived his wife, his son, and his son-in-law, his grandson encouraged him to come live with him. They were roommates for a time in Ann Arbor and then when the author, already married, went to work in Houston, Rocky and the author’s mother moved into a home close by.

Their last verbal exchange, as his grandfather lay dying in a hospital bed in 1982, was in Yiddish, a language that encompassed the Old World of his grandfather and the world of the author’s childhood – the language of home. And after his death, at the burial, Apple was proud to be able to refuse the prayer book the rabbi handed him and to say Kaddish from memory.

To read an interview with Max Apple about the writing of Roommates, click here.

People
Herman (Yerachmiel) Goodstein – married Gootie
    Max Goodstein – son of Herman and Gootie
    Bashy Goodstein – daughter of Herman and Gootie; married to Sam Apple
        Bailey Apple – daughter of Bashy and Sam
        Maxine Apple – daughter of Bashy and Sam
        Max Apple – son of Bashy and Sam; married Debby; author
            Jessica and Sam – children of Max and Debby

Joe – Gootie’s brother
Mamie – a cousin of author’s mother

Friends and Acquaintances
Joel Kerner
Harry Zeff
Alan Perlis

Places
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Detroit, Michigan
Muskegon – Michigan

The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers Her Father’s War by Louise Steinman 2001

"Only when we begin to share our stories, she discovers, can we also begin to approach the humanity we aspire to, and at the same time feel shame at the brutal bestiality of which we are all too capable."
 from a New York Times review by Diane Cole 12/02/01

When Louise Steinman was emptying her parents’ condominium after they had both died in 1990, she found a strong box that included 474 letters her father had written to her mother from the Pacific front where he had been stationed during World War II from August of 1943 until December of 1945. Also in the box was an envelope that contained a small Japanese flag with Japanese characters written on it. Her father Norman Steinman, who had immigrated to New York with his mother and sister when he was five and a half years old from Zhitomir, Ukraine, came home from serving in World War II a changed man, moody and uncommunicative. His wife and four children (the oldest of whom was born nine months after he went off to war) knew never to ask him about the war and to stay away from him if something triggered one of his rages.

Finding this trove of newsy, often emotional letters to her mother, as well as finding the Japanese flag, motivated the writer to investigate her father’s war years in an attempt to know her father as a young soldier. She learned that he had been an infantryman who had been shipped to the Philippines where he participated in one of the most difficult battles in Luzon as the Japanese tried to keep the Americans at bay and away from Japan.

She was also intent on finding out more about the Japanese flag her father had kept along with the letters. She started by having the writing on the flag translated and learned that the young Japanese soldier/owner of the flag, whose name was on the flag, had received it as a good-luck gift from family and friends who had signed their names on it. More investigation revealed that he had been killed in the Philippines shortly after he enlisted.

The author initially had her doubts about whether to search for his family, and whether to return the flag. She reports that her brother Larry asked her a provocative question: If their father had fought in Europe and had come home with a German flag with a swastika on it, would she be trying to find that soldier’s family and return the flag? A provocative question, indeed, one for which she has no ready answer. But she proceeded to visit the Philippines and then Japan where she returned the flag to the soldier’s family.

Steinman discusses the atrocities the Japanese visited on their enemies as well as those that resulted from the Americans dropping the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In researching wartime propaganda, brainwashing and military training, she cites literature that discusses the need to dehumanize the enemy as a way to rationalize torturing and killing them. She finds an obvious example in objectifying the enemy in her father’s easy use of “Japs” and “Nips.”

Like many children of survivors of concentration camps, she grew up with a father who had a traumatizing experience.  Research now informs us that he suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome that at that time went unlabeled, undiagnosed and untreated. A by-product of war, it claimed many victims and their families. She realizes that the damage war inflicts lingers through generations.

To read an article about late-onset Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome suffered by those who survived World War II, click here.

People
Herschel (Harry) Steinman – married Rebecca
    Ruth Steinman - daughter of Herschel and Rebecca
    Norman Steinman – son of Hershel and Rebecaa; married Anne Weiskopf
          Ruth Steinman – daughter of Norman and Anne; married to Matthew Solomon
             Jennifer Solomon – daughter of Ruth and Matthew
         Larry Steinman - son of Norman and Anne
         Louise Steinman – daughter of Norman and Anne; married Lloyd Hamrol; author
         Kenneth Steinman - son of Norman and Anne
   
Louis Weiskopf – married Sarah
     Anne Weiskopf - daughter of Louis and Sarah; married Norman Steinman (see above)
     Doris Weiskopt - daughter of Louis and Sarah

Friends and Acquaintances
    Sam Wengrow
    Morrie Franklin
    Sylvan Katz

Places
Zhitomir, Ukraine 
Bronx, New York
New York City, NY
Culver City, California
Luzon, The Philippines

We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust by Ellen Cassedy 2012

Interviewing locals, uncovering forgotten archives and encountering a strange old man who wants to 'speak to a Jew' before he dies, Cassedy weaves together a historical quilt that provides important context. From a review by Abe Novick published in the Baltimore Jewish Times on 4/27/2012

Ellen Cassedy, a journalist, felt many emotional connections to the Jewish Lithuania where her maternal grandfather immigrated from, and, after her mother died, she especially missed the Yiddish that helped to connect her to that world. So she enrolled in a summer Yiddish course at Vilnius University in Lithuania and visited towns, streets and buildings that were connected to the life of her family.

She had two other goals as well. Before she left for Lithuania she visited her grandfather’s elderly half-brother, Willie, the last surviving member of her grandfather’s generation, who had been a prisoner of the Shavl ghetto. He looked at maps with her and gave her information she wanted to check out. And she also was interested in assessing how contemporary Lithuanian institutions and ordinary Lithuanian citizens were dealing with their roles in all but eliminating the Lithuanian Jewish community.

The author had a challenging but rewarding stay in Lithuania. She was overwhelmed by the intensity of her Yiddish classes. The same was true about her travels around Lithuania and her conversations with both Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. All of it was emotionally exhausting, but she found her Yiddish improved in leaps and bounds. And in her travels, in some cases she found what she assumed she’d find: many Lithuanians ignorant of their own history. But she also met Lithuanians who had played a role in saving Jews and heard stories about others who had hidden Jews in barns and attics and had passed food over the ghetto walls.

What was most enlightening to Cassedy and what she spends some time developing are the essential questions she began to formulate after her encounters with both Jews and non-Jews. She conducts an interesting analysis of the supposedly opposing terms: victim and collaborator, enforcer and protector, resister and bystander. And her discussion of how you define resistance both within and outside the ghetto is thought provoking, as is her discussion of forgiveness, condemnation, revenge and hatred.

In this engaging memoir the author, who begins with an informative overview of Lithuanian Jewish history and then takes us through the horrors of World War II and its aftermath, ends in the present, contemplating the future. She takes comfort in learning that young Lithuanians are far better informed because of the many thoughtful programs and exhibits that have been designed by Jews and non-Jews.. She learns that they are presented at schools and museums, and she sees that markers memorializing murdered Jews have become part of the landscape. She hopes against hope that lessons about the past will take hold and inform the future.

To consult a Lithuania Holocaust atlas, click here.
 To read an interview with Ellen Cassedy about the writing of this memoir click here.

People
Dovid Mikhl Levinas – married Asne; second wife Soreh
    Yankl (Jack) Levinas – son of Dovid Mikhl and Asne
        Ellen Cassedy – married Jeff Blum; author
            Tim and Meg Blum – children of Ellen and Jeff
    Shaya Levinas – son of Dovid Mikhl and Asne
    Aaron Levin(as) – son of Dovid Mikhl and Asne; married Sonya
        Asya Levin Shindelman – daughter of Aaron and Sonya
        Vova Levin – son of Aaron and Sonya
    Taybe Levinaite – daughter of Dovid Mikhl and Asne
    Soreh Levinaite – daughter of Dovid Mikhl and Asne
    Rikle Levinaite – daughter of Dovid Mikhl and Asne
    Luba Levinaite – daughter of Dovid Mikhl and Asne
    Menachem Mendel Levinas – son of Dovid Mikhl and Asne
    Pinchas Levinas – son of Dovid Mikhl and Asne
    William Levin(as)– son of Dovid Mikhl and Soreh; married Manya
        David and Daniel Levin – cousins of author; probably sons of William and Manya

Friends and Acquaintances and Sources
Mendy Cahan
Yitskhok Niborski
Khanan Bordin
Irena Veisaite (Veis, Weiss)
Shimon Alperovitch
Efroyim Gens
Jacob Gens – brother to Efroyim
Abner Kovner
Itzik Wittenberg
Leonidas Donskis
Regina Kopilevich
Emanuel Zingeris
Rokhl Kostanian
Milan Chersonskij
Shimon Davidovitch
Dana Pomerants
Boris Stein
Levi Shalit
Eliezer Yerushalmi
Khayim Zhilinski

Places
Vilnius (Vilna), Lithuania
Vilna ghetto, Lithuania
The Chor Shul (the Choral Synagogue), Vilnius
Rokiskis, Lithuania
Siauliai (Shavl), Lithuania
Shavl ghetto, Lithuania
Kaunus (Kovno), Lithuania
Kovno ghetto, Lithuania
Ponar forest, Lithuania
Kedainiai, Lithuania
Birzai, Lithuania
Butrimonys, Lithuania
Bajorai, Lithuania
Sobibor Concentration Camp, Poland
Dachau Concentration Camp, Germany
Irkutsk, Siberia
Vorkuta, Siberia

MetaMaus: A Look Inside a Modern Classic by Art Spiegelman 2011

"The three longest chapters [of MetaMaus] provide nuanced and richly illustrated answers to the questions every reader has probably asked: 'Why the Holocaust?' 'Why mice?' and 'Why comics?'" from a review by Patricia Hagen in the Star Tribune, 11/19/2011

Art Spiegelman, author of the award-winning Maus, has written a memoir that looks back at the making of Maus and elaborates on its many themes. The body of the commentary comes in the form of conversations with the professor/scholar Hillary Chute, wherein she poses a question or states an observation and Spiegelman responds. Spiegelman provides background information about himself and his Holocaust survivor parents and carefully reasoned artistic explanations for many of the decisions he made as he was working on Maus. Also, Spiegelman gave her access to his files, and the book includes many early sketches, notes, and panels as well as related material which had been published elsewhere.

Spiegelman talked to Chute about what fueled his growing interest in trying to draw and write about the Holocaust. He never had any intention of using it in his art but he found himself inevitably moving in that direction, partly as a way to try to connect to his father with whom he’d had a difficult relationship, but also because the Holocaust was what had enveloped him his whole life. When he decided to tell his father’s story he had to wrestle with the issue of making art out of Holocaust experiences. He was intent in doing so without sentimentalizing his father’s story, branding all stories by and about survivors that rely on excessive sentiment “Holokitsch.”

Some of the most interesting material is the author’s discussions about memory and accuracy. Once he knew he needed to tell this story, he needed to immerse himself in history, worrying all the time about getting it right. He had dual concerns: getting his father’s story right and also being accurate about the larger story of the Holocaust. He needed to constantly prod his father for more details and check them against historical material whenever possible. He needed to visit Auschwitz.

Much of the book is taken up with discussions about Spiegelman’s use of the comic book form to tell his family’s story and his metaphoric use of animals to represent the characters. Spiegelman discusses what was innovative and the various forms of resistance Maus received, both before publication and after. He also discusses who his influences were in the world of alternative comic book art and how the fame Maus has brought him has affected him as a person and as an artist. There is an interesting discussion of the difficulty of translating Maus into other languages and the reception Maus had in various countries.

In addition to the discussions listed above, this volume also includes ancillary material:

After Maus was published Art Spiegelman learned of an extensive Spiegelman family tree created by a second cousin, Simon Spiegelman, which is included along with a two-page narrative history of the family written by his cousin. There is also a Zylberberg family tree. Both trees are reproduced below in list form without birth and death dates which can be found on the trees reproduced in the book.

The book also includes many more family photos than in the original Maus, a transcript of Spiegelman’s interviews with his father, a short chapter that includes interviews with women who knew his mother, a chronology - 1906-2010, and an index.

MetaMaus also includes a DVD. Part I is a digitally reproduced version of the complete Maus where you can also click to hear Spiegelman’s father’s voice and see digitally reproduced versions of sketches and drafts. Part II includes some of the same ancillary material found in the paper version of MetaMaus discussed above, but also additional material which forms a digital archive: sketches and drawings by the author, a collection called Anja’s Bookshelf which includes postwar Polish pamphlets on the war and the camps, a home movie of Spiegelman’s trip to Auschwitz, and essays by Spiegelman and others written about Maus and originally published elsewhere.

For a short history of Auschwitz through photos and text, click here.
For the earlier post on this blog of a review of Maus click here.

Family
Author’s father’s family
Majer Szpigelman – married Zysla
Chaim Lajb Szpigelman – son of Majer and Zysla; married Fajgla Szpringer
        Moszek Moshe Szpigelman –  son of Chaim and Fajgla; married Chana Zysla Rajsfeld   
            Icek Wolf Szpigelman – son of Moszek and Chana
            Hendla Szpigelman – daughter of Moszek and Chana
            Maria Laja Szpigelman – daughter of Moszek and Chana
            Rajza Szpigelman – daughter of Moszek and Chana
            Majer Jozef Szpigelman – son of Moszek and Chana
            Jakob Szymon Szpigelman – son of Moszek and Chana
Menachem Mendl Szpigelman – son of Chaim and Fajga; married Chaja Majerczik; married Chaja Sura Lauber (2nd wife)
        Majer Jozef Szpigelman – son of Menachem and Chaja Majerczik
        Andzua Hendla Szpigelman – daughter of Menachem and Chaja Majerczik
        Berek Szpigelman – son of Menachem and Chaja Majerczik
        Rywka Zysla Szpigelman – daughter of Menachem and Chaja Majerczik
        Lola Szpigelman – daughter of Menachem and Chaja Majerczik
        Regina Szpigelman – daughter of Menachem and Chaja Majerczik
        Eliash Szpigelman – son of Menachem and Chaja Majerczik
        Miloch Szpigelman – son of Menachem and Chaja Sura; married Gutcha
        Pesach Szpigelman – son of Menachem and Chaja Sura
        Haskel Szpigelman – son of Menachem and Chaja Sura
Majer Szpigelman – son of Chaim and Fajgla; married Ruchla Altman
        Ziser Szpigelman – son of Majer and Ruchla
        Mordka Hillel Szpigelman – son of Majer and Ruchla
        Abram Wolf Szpigelman – son of Majer and Ruchla
        Faigla Rywka Szpigelman – daughter of Majer and Ruchla
        Arie Szpigelman – son of Majer and Ruchla
        Zysla Szpigelman – daughter of Majer and Ruchla
        Szlama Becalel Szpigelman – son of Majer and Ruchla
Jozef Henoch Szpigelman – son of Chaim and Fajgla; married Zysla Zylbersztajn
        Jakob Szlama Szpigelman – son of Jozef and Zysla
        Fajgla Rywka Szpigelman – daughter of Jozef and Zysla
        Abram Szaja Szpigelman – son of Jozef and Zysla
        Pinkus Eli Szpigelman – son of Jozef and Zysla
        Frajda Rachela Szpigelman – daughter of Jozef and Zysla
        Chaja Sura Szpigelman – daughter of Jozef and Zysla
        Hendla Szpigelman – daughter of Jozef and Zysla
        Jacheta Szpigelman – daughter of Jozef and Zysla
        Mariem Szpigelman – daughter of Jozef and Zysla
Sara Szpigelman – daughter of Chaim and Fajgla; married Fajwel Kronenberg
            Fela (Fajgla)  Szpigelman – daughter of Sara and Fajwel
            Majer (Max) Szpigelman – son of Sara and Fajwel
            Burech Mordka Szpigelman – son of Sara and Fajwel
            Jacheta Szpigelman – daughter of Sara and Fajwel
            Chaim Lajb Szpigelman – son of Sara and Fajwel
            Jakob Josef Szpigelman – son of Sara and Fajwel
            Dawid Moszek Szpigelman – son of Sara and Fajwel
        Chana Ruchla Szpigelman – daughter of Chaim and Fajgla; married Mendel Zygrajch
            Fajgla Szpigelman – daughter of Chana and Mendel
            Ajzik Szpigelman – son of Chana and Mendel
            Fiszel Szpigelman – son of Chana and Mendel
            Majer Szpigelman – son of Chana and Mendel
            Pejsach Szpigelman – son of Chana and Mendel
            Dworja Ita Szpigelman – daughter of Chana and Mendel
            Chaim Lajb Szpigelman – son of Chana and Mendel
            Abram Jakob Szpigelman – son of Chana and Mendel
        Abram Szpigelman – son of Chaim and Fajgla; married Pesla Zylberszac; married Chaja Goldberg (2nd wife)
            Izrael Szymon Szpigelman – son of Abram and Pesla
            Fela (Faigla) Szpigelman – daughter of Abram and Chaja
            Vladek (William) Szpigelman (Spiegelman) – son of Abram and Chaja; married Anja Zylberberg; married Mala Kurland (2nd wife)
                Richieu Szpigelman – son of Vladek and Anja
                Arthur Szpigelman (Spiegelman) – son of Vladek and Anja; married to Francoise; (author)
                    Nadja and Dasheill Spiegelman – children of Arthur and Francoise   
            Marcus (Mordka) Szpigelman – son of Abram and Chaja
            Moses (Mojzesz) Szpigelman – son of Abram and Chaja
            Mendel Szpigelman – son of Abram and Chaja
            Leon (Chaim Lajb) Szpigelman – son of Abram and Chaja
            Zosha (Zysla) Szpigelman – daughter of Abram and Chaja
            Yadja (Jacheta) Szpigelman – daughter of Abram and Chaja
            Pinek (Pejsach) Szpigelman – son of Abram and Chaja
        Wolf Szpigelman – son of Chaim and Fajgla; married Sura Rywka
            Max (Majer) Szpigelman – son of Wolf and Sura
            Lorre (Zysla Laja) Szpigelman – daughter of Wolf and Sura
            Frieda (Fajgla) Szpigelman – daughter of Wolf and Sura
            Lotte (Liba) Szpigelman – daughter of Wolf and Sura
            Toni (Tauba Chana) Szpigelman – daughter of Wolf and Sura
            Helene (Chaja) Szpigelman – daughter of Wold and Sura

Author’s mother’s family
Heschl Karmiol – married Ruchla
    Malka Karmiol – daughter of Heschl and Ruchla; married Israel Itzah Zylberberg
        Herman Zylberberg – son of Malka and Israel; married Hela
            Lolek Zylberberg – son of Herman and Hela; married Lonia
                Rachel Zylberberg daughter of Lolek and Lonia
                                                Laurie Zylberberg – daughter of Lolek and Lonia
                Andrew Zylberberg – son of Lolek and Lona; married Cynthia
                    Elaine, Karen, and Allison Zylberberg – children of Andrew and Cynthia
        Levek Zylberberg – son of Malka and Israel
        Tosha Zylberberg – daughter of Malka and Israel; married Wolf Steinkeller
            Bibi Steinkeller – daughter of Tosha and Wolf
        Anja Zylberberg – daughter of Malka and Israel; married Vladek Spiegelman
            Richieu – son of Anja and Vladek
            Arthur – son of Anja and Vladek – married Francoise Mouly (see above); author
        Josef Zylberberg – son of Malka and Israel; married to Mina

            Marysia Winogron – second cousin of Anja’s (father’s were first cousins)
                Leonard and David Winogron – sons of Marysia

Friends and Acquaintances
David and Ita Kracauer
Paul Pavel
Renya Ostry
Alter Mandelbaum
Blima Mandelbaum (Blanca Thurm) – Alter’s daughter
Avraham MAndelbaum – Alter’s nephew
Liba Eibschutz – Alter’s neice
Marisha Shubert
Hanka Sucher (Hanna Heron)

Places
Dabrowa, Poland
Sosnowiec, Poland
Stara Sosnowiec, Poland
Srodula, Poland
Zawiercie, Poland
Bielsko, Poland
Dachau, Poland
Lodz, Poland
Birkenau Concentration Camp
Auschwitz Concentration Camp
Ravensbruck-Malhoff Concentration Camp
Sweden
Norristown, Pa
Fort Tryon Park, NYC
Rego Park, Queens, NYC
Soho, NYC

My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner: a family memoir by Meir Shalev 2009 in Hebrew, 2011 in English

"Shalev’s sentences deserve to be read out loud. He says he’s sticking to the facts here, even though his storytelling can be circular, with stories within stories and different versions of the same story ..." from a review by Sandee Brawarsky in the Jewish Week, 11/22/2011

The Israeli writer, Meir Shalev, has written an entertaining and enlightening memoir whose setting is Nahalal, a moshav founded in 1921 in Palestine. His maternal grandparents were early settlers, having immigrated from Ukraine. Shalev, who was born in 1948 in Nahalal, but who later moved to Jerusalem, recreates the early difficult years of the moshav. The settlement’s development and survival depended upon backbreaking labor. But Shalev relates that his grandfather, who had the temperament and interests of a writer/poet, was not really cut out for that kind of life. He writes that it was his grandmother who kept the farm functioning, relying on the help of her children: five boys and two girls.

Shalev’s grandfather’s brother left Ukraine and decided to immigrate to America, a life decision his brother in Palestine completely disdained. Shalev uses the two brothers’ different life choices as the amusing pivot of his story, writing the tale in a tone meant to entertain its readers. He describes in detail his grandmother’s obsession for keeping her house clean, constantly dusting in a setting where dust whirled all the time. He then tells us that he learned that many years ago his grandfather’s brother in California had sent his grandmother a new-fangled vacuum cleaner from America. But all he knew about the unseen vacuum cleaner was that she had locked it up and did not use it. The locked-up vacuum cleaner became a family legend and Shalev spins out various contradictory versions of its fate - stories told to him by various family members.

As the tale surrounding the mystery of the unused vacuum cleaner unwinds, we also learn about early settler ideology and day to day life on the moshav. This is a lovingly, but clear-sighted, look at the life of a large Israeli farm family whose roots in Israel go back to the difficult life of early pioneers.

Note: It's too bad that the Hebrew title of this memoir was not translated and used as its title in English. Ha'Davar Haya Kakha  means This is How It Was which conveys the importance of storytelling, both to his grandmother whose stories started with that phrase and of course to the author, a gifted storyteller, who carries on the tradition. He opens the memoir with that phrase.


To watch and listen to Meir Shalev give a talk and answer questions about this memoir at the 6th and I Historic Synagogue in Washington D.C. click here.

People
Mordechai Zvi Pekker – married ?; 2nd marriage to Batya
    Shoshanna Pekker – daughter of Mordechai Zvi and ?; married Aharon Ben-Barak (see below)
    Moshe Pekker – son of Mordechai Zvi and Batya
    Yitzhak Pekker – son of Mordechai Zvi and Batya
    Yaacov Pekker – son of Mordechai Zvi and Batya
    Tonia Pekker – daughter of Mordechai Zvi and Batya; married Aharon Ben-Barak (see below)

    Yeshayahu (Sam) (brother of Aharon)
    Aharon Ben-Barak – married  Shoshanna Pekker; married 2nd wife Tonia Pekker
        Itamar Ben-Barak – son of Aharon and Shoshanna
        Benyamin Ben-Barak – son of Aharon and Shoshanna
        Micha Ben-Barak – son of Aharon and Tonia; married to Tzafira
        Batya Ben-Barak – daughter of Aharon and Tonia
            Meir Shalev – son of Batya and Yitzhak Shalev; author
            Rafaela Shalev – daughter of Yitzhak and Batya
            Zur Shalev – son of Yitzhak and Batya
                Roni and Naomi Shalev – daughters of Zur

        Menachem Ben-Barak – son of Aharon and Tonia; married Penina
            Zohar and Gila Ben-Barak – children of Menachem and Penina
        Batsheva Ben-Barak (twin of Menachem) – daughter of Aharon and Tonia; married Arik
            Nadal – son of Batsheva and Arik
        Yair Ben-Barak – son of Aharon and Tonia; married Tzilla
    Sarah Ben-Barak – sister of Yeshayahu (Sam) and Aharon

Meir Shalev – married Zipporah
    Yitzhak Shalev – son of Meir and Zippora; married Batya Ben-Barak (see above)
        Meir Shalev – son of Yitzhak and Batya; author (see above)
    Mordechai Shalev – son of Meir and Zippora; married Rika

Friends and Acquaintances
Shmuel Pinneles
David Shahar
Penina Gary
Thelma Yellin
Ze’ev Smilansky
Haim Shorer
Motke Habinsky
Yitzhak Ben Yaakov
Nahum Sneh

Places
Makarov, Ukraine
Rokitno, Ukraine
Nahalal, Israel
Los Angeles, California
Kibbutz Ginosar, Israel
Kfar Yehoshua, Israel
Herzliya, Israel
Kibbutz Hanita, Israel
K’far Chabad, Israel
Kfar Monash, Israel
Kiryat Haim, Israel

Messages from My Father by Calvin Trillin 1996

"The book says something about all immigrant families and their aspirations in the US that's especially apparent in the way it makes clear that the senior Trillin never lost sight of the America he wanted his son to be a part of." from a review by Geoff Edgers in The Boston Phoenix, May 16-23, 1996

The writer Calvin Trillin, originally from Kansas City, Missouri, has written this lovely, moving memoir about his father who, he realizes, had far more of an effect on his life than he had thought. His father, born Abram Trilinski, came to America as a child with his parents and siblings from Ukraine and arrived in Galveston, Texas, an alternate immigration port. They originally settled in Saint Joseph, Missouri with other Eastern European Jews where the author’s grandfather, Kusel Trilinski, soon opened a grocery store.

When Abe Trilinski became an adult, following in his father’s footsteps, he too opened a grocery store. He eventually owned a group of five. He had one foot in the old world - he was fluent in Yiddish - but he worked at being American. The writer guesses that that was his motivation for his changing the family name from Trilinski to Trillin and naming his son Calvin (after Abe's father Kusel Trilinski). Intent on seeing his family succeed, he worked six days a week, getting up at four to go to the wholesale market. Calvin Trillin characterizes him as an optimist and apolitical. This behavior Trillin contrasts to the New York Jewish community he came to know when he moved to New York.

What stands out is his father’s dream that his son go to Yale so that Calvin could make more of a mark than Abe had. Many of his father’s traits and opinions Trillin, in his humorous way, characterizes as absurd and lovable at the same time. His father got the idea of Yale from a book he had read as a child and he systematically put away money in small increments for his son’s tuition way before he had any idea whether his son would apply and be admitted. Looking back, the author is moved at his father’s singlemindedness and self-sacrifice. He realizes that his father knew that on some level once his plan for his son came to fruition, he would lose him: that after four years on the east coast at Yale his son would most likely be lured permanently away from the Midwest, which is exactly what happened.

Trillin realizes that his immigrant father succeeded in this country but hated the business he was in and felt unfulfilled in the world beyond his family. He narrates the realities of his father’s life in a light vein but with great tenderness, admiration, affection, and gratitude.

To read an article written by Jacob Schiff in 1914 discussing his instigation of the Galveston project that brought Jewish immigrants through the port of Galveston, Texas, click here.


People
Kussiel (Kusel) Trilinski – married Anna   
    Abe (Abram) Trillin (Trilinski) – son of Kussiel and Anna;  married Edyth Weitzman
        Elaine Sue Trillin – daughter of Abe and Edyth
        Calvin Trillin – son of Abe and Edyth; married Alice Stewart; author
            Abigail and Sarah Stewart Trillin – daughters of Calvin and Alice
    Sadie (Scheindel) Trilinsky – daughter of Kussiel and Anna
    Maishe Trilinsky – son of Kussiel and Anna
    Hannah Trilinsky – daughter of  Kussiel and Anna; married Jerry Cushman
        Keith Cushman – son of Hannah and Jerry
    Earl (Schroelik) Trilinsky – son of Kussiel and Anna

Benny Daynovsky – Kusel’s brother-in-law (exact relationship unclear; maybe Kusel’s wife Anna was a Daynovsky)

Ben Weitzman – ? Ginsberg
    Edyth Weitzman – daughter of Ben; married to Abe Trillin (see above)

David Ginsberg – brother of Ben Weitzman’s wife

Acquaintances
Gershon Hadas

Places
Sokol’cha Ukraine
Kansas City, Missouri
St. Joseph, Missouri
Leavenworth, Kansas

Two Lives by Vikram Seth 2005

"Henny and Shanti had no children. But they did have an author for a great-nephew. And his Two Lives is a stay against their oblivion." from a review by Blake Morrison published in the Guardian on 9/16/2005

Although the writer Vikram Seth is not Jewish, a very large part of this moving story is about his Jewish great aunt Hennerle Caro who escaped to England from her home in Berlin in 1939.  Shanti Seth, the author’s great uncle, met Henny Caro, his future wife, having rented a room from her mother before the war when he came from India to attend dental school in Berlin. They reconnected in England where he had already settled because as a "foreigner" he could not practice dentistry in Germany. They did not get married until 1951. Shanti Seth practiced as a dentist despite having lost an arm during his service in World War II.

The author came to know Shanti Uncle and Aunt Henny when in 1969, at the age of 17, he left India to attend school in England. A childless couple, Aunt Henny and Seth Uncle enjoyed the author’s company a great deal, treating him like a son. His great aunt suggested he learn German when he realized he needed to master a foreign language other than English as an education requirement. She offered to tutor him, which she did. He stayed close to them through the rest of their lives, visiting frequently, and flying in as often as he could from wherever he was when, as they grew older, they underwent a number of medical crises. Aunt Henny died in 1989 and Uncle Shanti  in 1998.

The author’s original intent was to write a biography of the interesting life of his great uncle Shanti; he conducted extensive interviews with him after Aunt Henny died. But on a visit from India, in helping to clean out the attic after Aunt Henny’s death, Vikram Seth’s father found a trunk in the attic belonging to Aunt Henny  full to the brim with correspondence, documents, and a few books. Her husband knew nothing about the trunk and their contents. Most correspondence covered the years from after the war through to the early 1950’s when Hennerle Caro was trying to find out about the fate of her mother and sister who had stayed behind in Berlin. Most were from Christian friends in Berlin consoling her on her loss and providing the information that they had gathered about the last days of Hennerle’s mother and sister who, she learned, though they lived together, were separated at death. Her elderly mother was deported to Theresienstadt, her sister to Birkenau.

The very long section in this 500 page book devoted to Henny Caro quotes these letters extensively and make for very interesting reading. Henny frequently made carbon copies of her responses so we hear her voice as she conveys her anger and bitterness at the fate of her family.  What’s particularly interesting in her letters are her inquiries to friends she trusts about others of their friends who were trying to re-establish contact with her. She wanted to know exactly how they had each behaved during the war, what groups they had joined, who they had associated with. She is bitter about those who wrote to console her after she finds out from others that certain of them stayed away from visiting her mother and sister even though many of her friends had known them well. Others had put themselves at risk by visiting them and helping them out with food before they were deported.

Henny was an heir to her mother’s, her sister’s and her two maiden aunts’ estates. Henny’s closest Christian friend who still lived in Berlin offered to help her with claims against the German government to facilitate compensation for both her lost wages and all confiscated property. The letters back and forth between Henny, her friend, the German government and the American government (because she suspected her wealthy aunts had sent money to American banks) reveal a callousness on the part of the bureaucracy in both governments that still outrages so many years later.

Vikram Seth informs us that before he investigated these letters in the trunk he only had a superficial knowledge about the Holocaust. He knew no Jews growing up in India. He was shocked that he had known nothing about his great aunt’s past. When he talked to his great uncle who had known his mother-in-law and sister-in-law when he lived in Berlin, Shanti Uncle said his wife never wanted to talk about it.

For the author, writing this book  included doing research about Jewish Berlin, the Nazi edicts visited on its Jewish residents, deportations, and conditions and procedures in the Thesienstadt and Berkenau concentration camps. At one point the author visited Israel to give a talk and found himself spontaneously going to Yad Vashem where he found entries for Gabriele and Lola Caro in German documents. Reading the German, a language he loved that was part of his connection to his great aunt when she had tutored him, so sickened him that for a period he stopped reading German and listening to German Leider.

The author concludes with making some salient points about having written this book. He is troubled with the fact that he was publishing letters that were not meant for the public eye, but decides that since Shanti Uncle and Aunt Henny are long gone, their lives are now part of history. He makes the point that their lives spanned most of the twentieth century and through his research and analysis the author reveals how the major events of the 20th century shaped their lives and those around them.

To read an article about the fate of Jews in Berlin, click here.
 

People
Isaac Caro – married Gabriele (Ella) Schmelkes
    Lola Caro – daughter of Isaac and Gabriele
    Hennerle Gerda Caro – daughter of Isaac and Gabriele; married Shanti Seth
    Heinz (Hei) Caro – son of Isaac and Gabriele; married Mia stonewalling at absurdity of responses from US and Germany

Olga and Flora Glaser – Henny’s aunts ( exact relationship unclear)
Malchen and Sigfried Pawel – Henny’s aunt and uncle (exact relationship unclear)

Friends and Acquaintances
Hans Mahnert – married Wanda
Fredy Aufrichtig
Jazko Rabau – married to Rose
    Inge – daughter of Jazko
Heinrich Etzold (Henry Edwards) – married Nita
    Susan Edwards – daughter of Henry and Nita
Adolph Berliner (A.G. Belvin)
Luther Berliner – brother of Adolph
Cora Berliner
Hans Altmann
Alice and Else Pasch – sisters
Adolf Wolffsky
Frieda, Ursel, and Klaus Alexander
Margot Berlowitz Weissberg
Walter Schachtel

Tilly Reich
Paul Oppler

Places
Berlin, Germany
Charlottenburg, Berlin
London, England
Le Paz, Bolivia
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia
Auschwitz, (Berkenau) Poland
Atlanta, Georgia
Shanghai, China
Palestine
Capetown, South Africa
Australia

Sala’s Gift: My Mother’s Holocaust Story by Ann Kirschner

"This moving account illuminates a little-known aspect of the Holocaust: Organization Schmelt, in which Jewish leaders supplied slave labor to the Germans for the war effort." from a review in Publisher's Weekly 8/21/2006

In 1991 when Ann Kirschner’s mother Sala was about to enter the hospital for by-pass surgery, afraid she might die, Sala Garncarz Kirschner handed her daughter a portfolio containing what turned out to be 352 letters, documents and photos that she had saved and guarded throughout the almost five years she had been in labor camps during World War II. The portfolio was a well-kept secret. Her daughter knew her mother was a survivor, but her mother had never been willing to talk about her experience. After the surgery, the two embarked on a project to reconstruct Sala’s life through interviews and through translating and putting in sequential order Sala’s collection – a “gift” to her family and to the wider world.

Sala Garncarz was the youngest daughter born into a large family of poor observant Jews who lived in Sosnowiec in western Poland. Because Sosnowiec and other towns near it were close to the German border, the Nazis established labor camps where they enslaved Jews to work to help their war effort. Sala Garncarz reported to a labor camp in Geppersdorf in late 1940 when she was just sixteen years old, was transferred at different times to other labor camps, and was liberated in 1945 from the Schatzlar labor camp in Czechoslovakia.

In this memoir Ann Kirschner has included many of the letters her mother saved. Many were from her sister Reizel who at  first wrote from home and then from the Neusalz labor camp where she was taken along with a third sister, Blima. Another set of early letters are from Sala’s girlfriends back home who had not yet been deported to concentration camps or assigned to labor camps.  A third set is from Ala Gertner, a woman ten years older than Sala who promised Sala's mother she would take care of Sala. Although the letters were censored, it is easy to read between the lines, and we can follow the progression from cheerful and hopeful to fearful and desperate.

Ann Kirschner did a lot of research to be able to contextualize the events in her mother’s life. Kirschner, for example, gives important background information about the Sosnowiec Jewish community and what happened to that community when the Nazis invaded Poland. She describes the role of Moses Merin whom the Nazis appointed as head of the Jewish Council and his double dealing as he tried to maintain his position and hold onto his life. She also gives us a short history of labor camps, as opposed to concentration camps, explaining the role of the Nazi officer Albrecht Schmelt who created and then administered a growing web of labor camps. (Oscar Schindler is probably the most well known factory owner whose factory was served by a labor camp.)  She describes the vital role these camps played in the Nazi war effort and then their waning presence after  Hitler’s 1942  Final Solution went into effect.


Sala Garncarz was released into a changed Poland. We follow her as she makes her way home to find out who is still alive. She then meets her future husband - an American GI, marries, and starts a new life in America, burying her old life in her heart and secreting evidence of her past in her portfolio.

The author has included many photos and copies of documents as well as an index and an extensive listing of sources divided into the following categories: Prewar Life in Sosnowiec, Poland and During the Occupation; Nazi Labor Camps and Organization Schmelt; Moses Merin and the Jewish Council; August 12, 1942; Ala Gertner and the Auschwitz Uprising; Schatzlar, Neusalz, and Dyhernfurth.  She has also included a useful listing of  "Additional Sources and Inspirations" which is mostly a listing of more general works on the Holocaust.

To watch and listen to a lecture on You Tube by Ann Kirschner about her mother's story, click here.

To read a document on the website of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum about forced labor as well as to see archival footage and to have access to personal testimonies, click here.

People
Family
Abram Simcha Garncarz – married to Rachel
    Moshe Chaim Garncarz – son of Abram and Rachel; married Matel Sczydlov
    Raizel Lea Garncarz – daughter of Abram and Rachel; married Yaacov Fischel

    Josef Garncarz –nephew of Abram and Rachel; married Chana Feldman(second wife)
        Miriam Chaya Garncarz – daughter of Josef and first wife
        Moshe David Garncarz – son of Josef and Chana; married to Hendel
        Laya Dina Garncarz – daughter of Josef and Chana; married to David Krzesiwo
            Salusia and Moniek Krzesiwo – children of Laya Dina and David
        Hersh Leib Garncarz – son of Josef and Chana
        Avram Yitzhak Garncarz – son of Josef and Chana
        Chaim Pincus Garncarz – son of Josef and Chana
        Fiegele Garncarz – daughter of Josef and Chana
        Yankov Aaron – son of Josef and Chana
        Blima Garncarz – daughter of Josef and Chana; married to Jacob Goldberg
        Raizel (Rose) Garncarz – daughter of Josef and Chana; married to Ezriel Lange
        Salusia (Sala) Garncarz – daughter of Josef and Chana; married Sydney Kirschner
            Joseph Kirschner – son of Sala and Sydney
            Ann Kirschner – daughter of Sala and Sydney; married to Harold Weinberg
                  Elisabeth, Caroline and Peter Weinberg - children of Ann and Harold
            David Kirschner – son of Sala and Sydney

                      Jennie, Jeremy, Gabby, Rachel and Yael  Kirschner - children of Joseph and David Kirschner (not clear which children "belong" to Joseph and which to David)
                           
Family of Chana Feldman (author’s great-grandmother – see above)
Asher Alter Feldman – uncle of Chana; married Tobele
    Yacob Hainoch Feldman – son of Asher and Tobele
    Blima Yockevet Feldman – daughter of Asher and Tobele
    Esther Feldman – daughter of Asher and Tobele
    Miriam Feldman – daughter of Asher and Tobele
    Aaron Yosef Feldman – son of Asher and Tobele
    Leah Dina Feldman – daughter of Asher and Tobele; married Yechiel Ophir
    Moshe Leib Feldman – son of Asher and Tobele
    David Feldman – son of Asher and Tobele
    Shlomo Feldman – son of Asher and Tobele
    Melech Feldman – son of Asher and Tobele
    Mendel Wolf Feldman – son of Asher and Tobele
   
 Rozia (Rose) Grunbaum Futter (?) Danziger (?); sister of Sala and Abram; cousin of Sala Garcarz (exact relationship not clear)
 Sala Grunbaum Singer - sister to Rozia and Abram; cousin of Sala Garncarz (exact relationship not clear)
 Abram Grunbaum – brother of Rozia and Sala; cousin of Sala Garncarz (exact relationship unclear)

Friends and Acquaintances
Sarah Schenirer
Sala Rabinowicz Poznanski - sister to Frymka and Glika
Frymka Rabinowicz Zavontz- sister to Sala and Glika
Glika Rabinowicz - sister to Sala and Frymka
Moses (Moshe, Moniek, Marek) Merin
Fani Czarna
Ala Gertner and Bernard Holtz - married
Wolf Leitner
Chaim Kaufman
Hokilo Dattner
Bela Kohn
Chaim Rumkowski
Sarah Czarka Helfand
Mitzi Mehler
Gucia Gutman Ferleger
Harry Haubenstock
Zusi Ginter Bloch - sister to Itka
Itka Ginter Bloch - sister to Zusi
Bronia Altman
Fryda Lipschitz
Mordechai Anielwicz
Eva Joskowitz
Friedl Silberstein
Sara Weisman
Roza Robota
Mala Weinstein
Anna Wajcblum Heilman - sister of Estusia
Estusia Wajcblum – sister of Anna
Regina Safirsztajn
Eugene Koch
Rose Meth
Morris Frank

Places
Bais Yaakov school, Sosnowiec, Poland
Sosnowiec, Poland
Wolbrom, Poland
Oswiecim, Poland
Bedzin, Poland
Warsaw, Poland
Skladowa transit camp, Poland
Geppersdorf labor camp,Germany
Neusalz labor camp, Poland
Grosse Sarne labor camp, Germany
Brande labor camp, Germany
Laurahutte labor camp, Poland
Gross Paniow labor camp, Poland
Blechhammer labor camp, Poland
Olkusz, Poland
Srodula ghetto, Poland
Kamionka, Poland
Flossenburg concentration camp, Germany
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Germany
Auschwitz concentration camp, Poland
Ansbach, Germany
Waldenburg, Poland
Dyhernfurth concentration camp, Poland
Frankfurt, Germany
New York City – East Harlem, Brooklyn, Queens
Palestine