The Arrogant Years: One Girl’s Search for Her Lost Youth, from Cairo to Brooklyn By Lucette Lagnado 2011

"'The Arrogant Years' . . .  [is] a paragon of memoir writing, a story about the complex swirl of people and events and forces out of which individual lives are made — some, like Ms. Lagnado’s, more painfully, but also more fully, than others." from a review by Alana Newhouse  in the New York Times 9/8/2011

This sequel to Lagnado’s first memoir, “The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit,” follows the same trajectory as the first – the memoir starts in Cairo where the Legnados lived as members of a large, prosperous Jewish community before they immigrated to Brooklyn, New York. But this second memoir shines the spotlight on different family members. This time around Lagnado spends very little time on her father who was the subject of her first memoir. Instead, she focuses on both her mother’s life and her own. 

She starts by recounting what she has learned about her mother’s childhood, describing in detail her mother’s mother and the life and culture of Jewish women in the Levant. She relates how her mother, highly educated with a satisfying career, felt obligated to give it up when she married. The marriage was problematic from the start. The author’s father felt free to do what he wanted whenever he wanted to; her mother became a passive, depressed housewife and mother.

Once Nasser came into power most members of the Jewish community fled, many going to Israel and the United States.  Lagnado’s father resisted leaving until conditions were just about impossible and they  immigrated in 1963 when the author was 7,  settling in Bensonhurst in Brooklyn, New York amongst other Jewish immigrants from the Levant.

In subsequent chapters the author elaborates on growing up in Brooklyn in the midst of a socially conservative, insular, transplanted immigrant Jewish community from the Levant where the cultural ties to their home countries were strong. Like in many immigrant groups, parents tried to keep the old ways, replicating customs they grew up with, including founding both religious and educational institutions that were designed to mirror those they left behind. Lagnado notes that some children stayed close to their parents, happy to abide by their wishes, choosing mates from within the community and settling close by. But in some families, like in her own, there was an ongoing tension between conducting their lives the way they had in the past versus embracing American customs and values.

Her father, partly because of a fall and botched surgery in Cairo, never attained the stature he had in Cairo, and sat by, a tired old man, while his family defied him. His children went to American schools and colleges, and his wife decided to go back to work. But although the author’s mother enjoyed her work at the Brooklyn Public Library, it was clear that the cultural shift was difficult and wearing on her. Especially upsetting was that Suzette, their oldest daughter, although still unmarried, moved away shortly after they arrived in America never to live with them again.

The author was very close to her mother who allowed her some freedom, but not enough. She would not let her mother's and the community’s old-world values stand in the way of what she wanted - the chance to embrace America, and to take advantage of what it had to offer. She succeeds in this struggle, becoming a well-established journalist and writer, but toward the end of the memoir she looks back. She revisited old friends from the community now dispersed, some living in Israel. She found many of them living lives very similar to the lives they led when they were growing up in Bensonhurst. While she cannot imagine living the lives they lead, she envies their feeling rooted in their traditions and clear-headed about the choices they made. She feels especially sorry about the tragedy of her mother's life: being caught between two worlds, not comfortable in either one.

To read the post in this blog reviewing Lagnado's The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, click here.

To read an article about the displacement of Jews from Arab countries, click here.

People
Family
Descendants of father’s side of Laniado rabbinic dynasty of Aleppo, Syria
    Shlomo Laniado – rabbi in 17th century

Leon Lagnado - married Edith Lagnado
    Suzette Lagnado – daughter of Leon and Edith
        Sasha – son of Suzette
    Cesar Lagnado – son of Leon and Edith; married Monica
        Carolyn and Evelyn Lagnado – daughters of Caesar and Monica
    Isaac Lagnado – son of Leon and Edith
    Lucette Lagnado – daughter of  and Edith; married Douglas Feiden

Maternal family
Selim Dana – married Rachel Dana (his niece)
    Alexandra Dana – daughter of Selim and Rachel married Isaac Matalon
        Edith Matalon – daughter of Alexandra and Isaac; married Leon Lagnado (see above)
        Felix Matalon – son of Alexandra and Isaac
Edgar Dana – Alexandra’s brother; married Marie
    Rachel Dana – daughter of Edgar and Marie
Farida – half-sister of Alexandria
Rosee – half-sister of Alexandra
    Lily – daughter of Rosee
Edouard  – half-brother of Alexandra
Lily Halawani – cousin of mother (daughter of Rosee, above?) exact relationship not clear

Salomone Silvera – relative, relationship to side of family unclear; married Sally
    Davide Silvera – son of Salomone and Sally
Rachel and Pico Hakim – relatives, relationship to side of family unclear
    Rosette Hakim – daughter of Rachel and Pico


Friends, Acquaintances and Members of the Jewish Community Past and Present
In U.S.A.
Rabbi Harry Rubin
    Miriam, Deborah, Rebecca, Rochelle and David Rubin – children of Harry
Abraham and Adele Cohen
    Leah, Gracie, Esther, Margarita Cohen - daughters of Abraham and Adele
    Rebecca Cohen Choueka – daughter of Abraham and Adele; married Eric Choueka
Rita Douek
Karen Alter
Marlene and Avi Ben Dayan
Celia Garzon Weinstein - Moshe Garzon's sister
Moshe Garzon – Celia Garzon Weinstein's brother
Joseph Hannon
Sarah Menachem
Rabbi Baruch Ben Haim
Rabbi Saul Kassin
Lillian Mosseri
Carin Roth
Eugene Gold
    Wendy – daughter of Eugene
Henry Finkelstein
Cyrus Wolf
    Laurie Wolf Bryk– daughter of Cyrus; married to Eli Bryk
        Lanie and Jackie – daughters of Laurie
    Trudy Wolf – daughter of Cyrus
Dr. Sydney Diamond
Rabbi Sam Horowitz
Fortune Cohen
Gladys – sister of Fortune; married Saul
Rabbi Rafael Benchimol
Kim Amzallag
Leah Iny
Stella Issever

In Egypt (or roots in Egypt)
Alice Suarez – married Yussef Cattaui
    Indjii, Aslan, and Rene,  – children of Alice and Yussef
        Nimet Cattaui – granddaughter of Alice and Yussef
            Michel Alexane – son of Nimet
        Stephane Cattaui – grandson of Alice and Yussef; married Maria Livanos
        Indjy Cattaui-Dumon – granddaughter of Alice and Yussef
    George Cattaui – nephew of Yussef
                Florence Sutter – gggranddaughter of Alice and Yussef (exact relationship unclear)
Moise Cattaui
Odette Harari
    David Harari – son of Odette
Yussef “Sousou” Makar
Sarah Naggar Halawani
Desi Sakkal
Ninette Toussoun
Rabbi Haim Nahum
Dr. Baroukh Kodsi
Maggie Wahba
Carmen Weinstein
Victor, George, and Haim Haboucha

Places
 Egypt
    Cairo
        neighborhoods: Garden City, Sakakini, Haret-el-Yahood, Heliopolis, Zamelek, Maadi, Fustat
        L’Ecole Cattui – Sakakini
        Le Sebil Jewish school
        Cicurel Department store
        Orozdi-Back Department store
        Shepheard Hotel
        L’Hopital Israelite
        Groppi’s
        Temple Hanan
        Ben Ezra Synagogue
        Gazira Sporting Club
        Villa Cattaui
    Alexandria
        Neighborhoods: Sporting, San Sefano, Sidi Bishr
        Delices
    Ras el-Bar, Egypt
        Aslan Hotel

USA
    Brooklyn, New York
        Neighborhoods: Bensonhurst, Brighton Beach, Park Slope, Ocean Parkway
        Shield of Young David Synagogue (David Magen)
        Ahaba ve Ahava synagogue
        House of Jacob Academy (Beis Ya’akov)
        Berkeley Institute
    Five Towns, Long Island, NY –areas: North Woodmere, Hewlett Harbor
    Gates of Prayer Synagogue, Manhattan
    Fifth Avenue Synagogue, Manhattan
    Deal, New Jersey

The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster 1982

"'What really struck me was the purity of his tone. As a publisher, you're always looking for tone and he had that in blinding amounts, a faintly detached, very cerebral tone,' [Robert] McCrum says." Quoted in an interview with Hadley Freeman published in The Guardian on 10/25/2002

The writer Paul Auster’s two-part memoir deals in the first half with his relationship with his father. The second part is more a philosophical meditation and intellectual inquiry into the author’s role as both father and as grandson.  It also deals with the interplay between memory, the role of language in apprehending memories and the nature of solitude. 

The first section of Auster’s memoir, called “Portrait of an Invisible Man,” is about his father’s absence when he was growing up. Samuel Auster, who was born in around 1911, worked long hours, leaving the house before his two children awoke and returning home after they were asleep. But more to the point, even when the author spent time with him on the weekends and holidays, he was remote and emotionally unavailable. Auster recounts vivid examples of how his father failed him, puzzling over his father’s behavior, longing for a way to reach him.

When he was adult, the frustration of having such an unsatisfactory relationship with his father drove him to learn more about him. Eventually the author was able to piece together a narrative from several sources that revealed his father’s very difficult childhood, which included a rather nomadic existence. His grandparents, Jewish immigrants from Austria, started a business in Lawrence, Kansas that failed. Eventually they settled for a while in Kanosha, Wisconsin where his father, the youngest of five, was raised during his early years. When the author was already an adult an old man from Kanosha who happened to sit next to his cousin on a plane, told a horrifying story about the Austers and  directed her to newspaper articles from 1919  in the Kenosha Evening News for details.

What he learns about his father’s upbringing may help him intellectually to better understand his father’s remoteness, but does not wipe away the longing he had for a meaningful relationship. The poetic intensity of Auster’s prose heightens the effect, leaving the reader with a powerful image of a relationship that was never whole.

Although family relationships have a place in the second half of the memoir, “The Book of Memory” is a more extended meditation on life, on life cut short, on presence and absence, on the function of memory. The author writes about his own absence in his son’s life once he and his wife divorced, and also about his caring for his dying maternal grandfather which of course triggers vivid memories of their life together. Auster’s style of writing in this section is not typical of a memoir. It is both intimate and ruminative. He probes and poses difficult questions.

To watch an interview with Paul Auster discussing his writing, click here. 

People
Family
Samuel Auster – brother of Harry Auster; author’s great-uncle
Harry Auster – brother of Samuel Auster; married Anna; author’s paternal grandparents
    Samuel Auster – son of Harry and Anna; married Queenie
        Paul Auster – son of Samuel and Queenie; author
            Daniel Auster - son of Paul Auster
Elizabeth Grossman - Anna Auster's sister

Friends and Acquaintances
Fanny Koplan
Rabbi M. Hartman
Gregory Altschuller

Places
Lawrence, Kansas
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Chicago, Illinois
Weequahic section of  Newark, New Jersey
New York City, New York




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Life With a Star by Jiri Weil published in Czech in 1949, published in English in 1989 (a novel); introduction written by Philip Roth

"[Josef Roubicek's] story stands as one of the most powerful works to emerge from the Holocaust; it is a fierce and necessary work of art." from a review in the New York Times by Michiko Kakutani on 6/9/1989

Jiri Weil (1900-1959) was a Jewish Czech writer who lived in Prague, and, according to Philip Roth’s lauditory introduction to this novel, lived a life in some ways similar to his main character Josef Roubicek. When the Nazis came to deport Weil he disappeared with the help of the resistance.

In the novel, which takes place in Prague, Roubicek at the time of the Nazi occupation is a young man who had been a bank clerk, but because of the restrictions placed on employing Jews, he has lost his job and lives starving in a garret where he’s burned most of his furnishings to keep himself warm.

Weil recreates an absurd and cruel world which takes on a surreal quality governed by Roubicek’s terror. The prose is spare and matter-of-fact, which has the effect of highlighting the horror. Roubicek knows he has been condemned even though he is innocent,  and we watch with mounting tension as he obsesses about what will happen to him next. When will his destroyers finally close in? When will he be selected to be deported?

Weil is also very adept at recreating the "Community," the part of the nightmare version of everyday life when Jew turned against Jew.The group of Jews in Prague who the Nazis designated as a governing body to enforce Nazi rules and regulations  are a terrifying presence. Roubicek lives in dread of  a message from them or a knock on the door.

Weil convincingly plumbs the psyche of his main character, his alter-ego. He also recreates the streets and neighborhoods of Prague filled with officials, as well as Roubicek's friends, acquaintances and many fellow sufferers. All of these various threads contribute to the novel's texture of reality.

People
Jiri Weil - author



Places
Prague. Czechoslovakia
Stresovice neighborhood of Prague

To read an article about the History of the Jews in Prague, click here.

Shlemiel Crooks by Anna Olswanger, illustrated by Paula Goodman Koz 2005

"The best thing here ... is Olswanger's Yiddish storyteller's voice, particularly the hilarious curses she weaves into the story ... Great for reading aloud." Reviewed by Hazel Rochman in Booklist

 A recent very entertaining children’s book awarded the designation of Sydney Taylor Honor Book is Anna Olswanger’s Shlemiel Crooks, colorfully illustrated by Paula Goodman Koz. Olswanger’s story which takes place in the first decade of the 20th  century is about Jewish immigrants in St. Louis. Why St. Louis?  Anna Olswanger based her children’s story on real events; she is recreating and joyfully embellishing an incident in the life of her great-grandfather when his saloon was nearly robbed.

In a short postscript in her book she tells the reader  that she only learned of the names of her great-grandparents, Elias and Dora Olschwanger, when, in 1982, she “started to research her family tree” which took her to St. Louis where they had lived. Part of the results of that research are two documents from the St. Louis Jewish Record that she reproduces at the end of her book in their original Yiddish along with English translations.

The first document is an ad placed by Olswanger’s great grandfather in February of 1918: It reads in part: “Eliyahu Olschwanger wishes to make known to all his friends that he has a fine and large stock of full and half-bottles of Carmel wines and cognacs. He has also purchased a large stock of Manischewitz from Cincinnati,…slivovitz, and … pesach’dik mead… Come in and order in time before the rush…” His name, address and phone number follow.

The second article reproduced was published a year later in 1919 (in Yiddish) under the heading “Reb Eliyahu Olschwanger Almost Robbed.”

“Shlimazel crooks, their work was unsuccessful. Last Thursday at 3:00 a.m. in the middle of the night, several men drove to the saloon of Reb Eliyahu Olschwanger at the corner of 14th and Carr streets. They opened the saloon and removed several barrels of brandy and beer. Mr. Mankel who lives on the second floor, upon hearing what was going on in the saloon, opened the window and began shouting for help. Benjamin Resnik from 1329 Carr Street, hearing the shouting, shot his revolver from his window. The band of crooks got scared and left everything, including their own horse and wagon and ran away. Police immediately came and took everything to the police station.”

 Out of these details and her imagination Olswanger has created a vibrant children’s book. The narrator tells this story in an animated “Guess what happened - Reb Olschwanger was almost robbed” tone of voice which pulls us right in. The story is dotted with Yiddish words, for example, “Such a tummel they were making!” And enhancing the animated narration are the colorful drawings by Paula Goddman Koz, many of them full-page. We see tenements where the wash is strung out across buildings. Another is a re-creation of what the storefront of Reb Olschwanger’s saloon might have looked like with men, women, boys and girls in period clothing, and another is of men studying Talmud.

The documents would, of course, thrill a family researcher. They are “only” a business advertisement and a report of an “almost” robbery but there is significant information to be gleaned. Reading these documents Anna Olswanger would have learned what her great-grandfather did for a living, that he was an enterprising business man serving his community and that he most probably spoke Yiddish. She would have found out his home address and his business address and phone number and of course she would have noticed that he spelled his name differently from the way she spells hers. She also would have learned the names and addresses of several of his neighbors which seems to indicate that he lived in a Jewish neighborhood.

Anna Olswanger has honored her great-grandfather by writing a children’s book based on an incident from his life which helps us to experience aspects of early immigrant life in America. Paula Goodman Koz's illustrations contribute a great deal to our experience.

To learn more about the genesis of this book and more about the Olschwanger family, click here.

People
Elias (Eliyahu)and Dora Olschwanger - author's paternal great-grandparents
          Anna Olswanger - author
Benjamin Resnik - neighbor   
Paula Good Koz - illustrator

Place
St. Louis, Missouri

The Neppi Modona Diaries: Reading Jewish Survival through My Italian Family by Kate Cohen 1997

 "The voices of the Neppi Modona family are interwoven with their discussions with the author. The frequent shift of focus enlightens rather than obscures. Four stories that remind us of the human dimension of history." from a review from Kirkus Reviews 11/1/96

Kate Cohen wrote this book with the financial help for foreign study from the Dartmouth College Committee on Graduate Fellowships. The award financed a trip to Italy so that Cohen could interview relatives of her father - Rachel Neppi Modona and her daughter Lionella, the two surviving members of their immediate family of four. The entire family had survived World War II, but Rachel’s husband Aldo and their son Leo, both of whom had kept diaries during the war years, died before the author began working on this book.

Having access to the two diaries and being able to interview the surviving women gave the author a window into how the family and many of their fellow Jews survived during World War II, first under Mussolini and then Hitler. The memoir is divided into four sections. In a general introduction we meet these Italian family members and learn some of their history. The next two sections consist of excerpts from the two diaries, first Leo’s rather short one, then his father’s longer diary. Throughout both sections Cohen intersperses diary entries with conversations she had with both Rachel Neppi Modona and her daughter Lionella who clarify and expand upon some of the circumstances discussed in the diaries. In the fourth section the author contextualizes their World War II experience and discusses the effects of the trauma of uncertainty, fleeing and hiding had on family members during the war and in post-war Italy. 

Some of what we learn from reading this memoir is that the Neppi Modona family whose home city was Florence was financially well off, well educated, and part of a large social circle. Aldo Neppi Modona’s family had lived in Italy for many generations and he was not at all an assimilated Jew. He was traditionally Orthodox and his religion and observance were very important to him. He was a fervent Italian patriot who had served in World War I and, in fact, was a member of the Fascist party. He could not believe that he would become a pariah. Little by little his status was eroded. Eventually he lost his teaching position, had to leave his home, and with his family wandered from one town to the next boarding with relatives, friends, and friends of friends in order to evade detection.

In reading the excerpts from these diaries, the discussions with the survivors, and the author’s commentary, we learn about the specific situation of the Neppi Modonas during World War II as well as the situation of Italian Jews in general. The author ends by explaining how reading the diaries and conducting the interviews helped her to gain insights into her own upbringing as a post-war Jewish American.

To read an article in the New York Times about recent research that deals with Jews in Italy during World War II, click here.

People
Leone Neppi Modona – married to Ada
    Aldo Neppi Modona – son of Leone and Ada; married to Rachel Fintz
        Lionella Neppi Modona – daughter of Aldo and Rachel; married to Guiseppi Viterbo
            Ada Viterbo – daughter of Lionella and Guiseppi
                Tal – daughter of Ada
            Emanuele Viterbo – son of Lionella and Guiseppi; married to Lia
        Leo Neppi Modona – son of Aldo and Rachel

Carlos Alberto Viterbo – father of Guiseppi Viterbo (married to Lionella Neppi Modona)

Family relatives – exact relationships unstated
Valentina Neppi Modona
Leone Ambron – cousin of Aldo Neppi Modona
Bettino and Luisa Errera
Matilde Nissim
Ernesta Neppi Modona
Amalie Cohen
    Ralph Cohen – son of Amalie; married to Judy
        Kate Cohen – daughter of Ralph and Judy;  married to Adam Daniel Greenberg; author
        Amy Cohen – daughter of Ralph

Friends and Acquaintances
Alfonso Pacifici
Enzo Bonaventura
Alfredo Forti
Siebzehner family
Costanza Salmon
Segre family
Viterbo family
Riccardo Dallo Volta
    Enrico Dalla Volta – son of Riccardo
    Margherita Dalla Volta – daughter of Riccardo
D’Urbino sisters
Nathan Cassuto – married to Anna
    David Cassuto – son of Nathan
       

Places
Rhodes
Anghiari, Italy
Florence, Italy
Galluzzo, Italy
Rome, Italy
Patmos, Greece
Israel

We Are On Our Own: A Memoir by Miriam Katin 2006

"Even as fiction it would be one of the best stories I've read in the last year, but as a memoir it leaves you speechless." from a review by Andrew D. Arnold in Time magazine 6/1/06

Miriam Katin, born in 1942 in Hungary, is a graphic artist who has lived and worked in the United States and Israel. This graphic memoir tells the story of her and her mother’s flight from Budapest in 1944. They fled to the countryside where with forged papers her mother sought work disguised as a peasant and lived with the constant fear of being discovered as a Jew.

In 1968, Miriam Katin was herself a young mother and is remembering her own childhood during World War II. A number of times she interrupts the story of her childhood to present a scene of her interacting with her young child. The contrast between the two time periods and the two mother/child situations is stark, and one way aesthetically Katin makes this point is to draw the scenes from her childhood (which take up most of the book) in pencil with no color except for the bright red of the Nazi flag. The scenes of her and her child are colorful and drawn with more detail.

This book is called a memoir – it is not presented as fiction – but Katin has chosen not to use her and her mother’s real names. Although she provides no stated reason for this, it is most likely because, as she explains in an epilogue, she was only two at the time of their flight and has no independent memories. She is relying on the stories her mother told her whose details she cannot verify, but she can depend on her own emotional memory of fear and displacement. She illustrates though a number of contemporary scenes how the trauma of both her and her mother’s wartime experiences affected their postwar lives.

In an epilogue Katin reveals that she relied on information she found in letters her mother sent to her father when they were in hiding and he was a soldier at the front. On one page she makes a collage of several letters and a postcard her mother sent her father that reached him. On another she reproduces a photo of her and her mother taken in 1946.

To read a short article about the siege of Budapest in 1944 click here.


Places
Budapest, Hungary
New York City, NY
Israel

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.