Book Review: Isidor. Ein judisches Leben by Shelly Kupferberg

 

A well known moderator of Jewish cultural events, Tel Aviv born Shelly Kupferberg published this year her first novel, a literary memoir of her great uncle Isidor Geller. 

First pages into the book, one may believe that the book is a work of fiction, but once the mentions of searching through the letters and diaries and scraps of the past in the Tel Aviv apartment of her grandfather - the Austrian-Israeli historian Walter Grab - we realize that Isidor is in fact a memory reconstruction. Literarilly speaking, it is impossible to fully reconstruct someone´s past assuming a full precision. Indeed, especially placed in a literary context of a family figure, most probably there will be life episodes and testimonies of a high personal, subjective nature therefore fictionalisation has its own place. Personally, I was not extremely pleased with the blurred lines between those approaches - literature and historical reconstruction - but it is a matter of clarity that I am feeling comfortable with sometimes in specific literary contexts. There are also a couple of repetitions about the characters, which although may make sense from the point of view of an unfolding storytelling, still does take some precious storyline time.

Returning to the novel as such, there are elements so familiar to almost all Jewish stories from the German-speaking realm - both in terms of common tragic destiny and, in some cases, assimilation. There are also many details that are resurging more and more boldly lately, especially related to the stealing - concealed for so many reasons - not only of Jewish properties, but of art and valuable objects, as well as book collections. However, the specific personal traits are equally important and do make the stories uniques and worth telling.

Isidor. Ein judisches Leben contributes to the emerging literature in German, by Jewish authors, about Jewish lives before and during the Shoah. The mentions: ´in German, by Jewish authors, about Jewish lives´ are simulataneously important for the sake of authenticity and owning the narrative in a way that does not try to excuse or to edulcorate the facts, but to share stories as they were, instead of fitting into a narrative imposed from outside the Jewish realm.

The outstanding poetic cover deserves a special mention as well, and as usual, I am in awe about the high quality of the covers of German books.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Henny Brenner: A Jewish Destiny in Dresden

The Allies bombing of the city of Dresden on mid-February 1945 saved the life of Henny Brenner (born Wolf) and to many other Jews who were ready to take the road to concentration camps. Henny, the mother of Munich-based historian Michael Brenner (his father is also a Shoa survivor) shared her story of survival during those terrible years with a journalistic detachement. 

People, situations and political circumstances are displayed in a slow moving cinematic chain of events. It is a relatively short book, but informative enough to request at least two additional readings. One, about the situation of Jews married with non-Jews and the other regarding the anti-Semitism in the ex-GDR.

Henny was the only child of a family with a Jewish mother and non-Jewish father. This situation delayed at a certain extent the moment of the deportation to the concentration camp, although the family properties were seized and she and her mother were obligated to do forced arbeit for ZESS Jena factory. Although mistakenly taken as an example of the pure 'Aryan race' by a teacher, she was expelled from school and suffered under the absurd anti-Semitic measures directed against Jews: among others, the interdiction of using the public transportation, to get a normal hair cut, to go to cultural events, to use the services of a non-Jewish doctor. However, her book also includes testimonies on the Jewish (reform) religious life in Dresden.

Henny and her mother lives' were saved by the Allies bombings, but what followed after the war was over in the so-called Nazi-free Germany was not pleasant either. Following the patterns of the set-up trials against Jews members of the communist establishment, the GDR leaders followed and put into prison representatives of the local community. Adviced by the wise - probably the only after the war until today - leader of the Berlin Jews, Heinz Galinski, Henny and her family will escape to Berlin, before the Wall and from here, she will further move to Bavaria after marrying Hermann Brenner. 

Henny Brenner book about her experiences as a young Jew in Dresden adds on to the literature about those times. It shares some new and detailed information about those times and outlines the horrors of facing on a daily basis racism and discrimination. Another dramatic testimony of a disturbing and haunting human experience.

Rating: 4 stars

Book Review: The treasure of Mr. Isakowitz

I have met Jews from Sweden, but never read a book written by a Swedish author about Jews and Shoa. Danny Wattin's book offered me the occasion to correct this omission. 

Maybe the story as such - three Jewish men: grandfather, son and grandson are going to Poland from Sweden to find the whereabouts of a tresure hidden before the war by the grand-grandfather - I fell in love with the writing style. It is a memoir inspired by personal stories, rebuilding fragments of stories during the war, based on stories of relatives and the own research of the author. The style is succint, suple, easy, not-pathetic and (self)ironic. It is the writing of a new generation of post-Shoah writers, quite far away of the events to approach the stories from a non-engaged angle but equally interested as the previous generations to tell the stories and recover the old histories. 

It results an approach that it is not superficial, but different. It remains the interest for the truth and the revenge of memory, but the scale of the voice differs. I am really curious about discovering more authors from this generation and, who knows, maybe some more histories about Swedish Jews too.