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250 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2012
I was stunned by the image of my mother ... . The woman in this photograph is not my mother, I thought. I recognized her proud profile; otherwise she bore little resemblance to the person I had known all my life. The mother I knew was frugal and practical. ... But it was not just the elegance of her attire that startled me so. The most striking difference was that the woman I knew was never still. ... She was on guard, jumping at the sound of a car horn, snapping with impatience if you kept her waiting. The woman in this photograph is calm, poised, self-possessed. She is at home in the world, and in herself.Thus began the author's search and series of interviews seeking information about her mother's early life and escape from Germany. Her detective work revealed layer after layer of a story that started out as an apparently happy well to do middle class living situation in Leipzig dissolving into sad tragedy and untrustworthy friends and relatives.
We both knelt on the ground, listening and breathing until words came. "May all be forgiven. May everyone be liberated from an burden of blame. May the pain between my mother and her family be put to rest, no more hatred to be carried from this day forth.They then visited the cemetery where her grandfather and grandmother were buried. Luckily the Jewish cemetery in Leipzig survived the Nazi era and is now taken care of.
May the trauma between German and Jew acknowledged and brought to completion. From this day forward, no victim, no oppressor. May all beings be free of suffering. May this land be free to nourish new life."
I reached into my pocket and took out a rose quartz stone I had brought with me from home and placed it on this grave that had remained without a visitor for seventy years, probably since my mother left Germany in 1935.Near the end of the book the author reflects on lessons learned. She acknowledges that she knows that she was loved by her mother and that her own life circumstances are blessed compared to those of her mother. However, she doesn't need to inherit everything.
Michael and I closed our eyes, each with our own prayer. Then I spoke.
"I am sitting on the bones of my grandparents. They have crossed over to another plane and the things they did or did not do, the words they said or did not say, are no longer relevant. They are my grandparents and I thank them for the gift of life they gave to Alice, and she in turn, passed on to me. I acknowledge the pain that they may have inflicted, and forgive them for anyway they caused my mother to suffer. Now Alice is also free. ... she has returned to her pure spirit."
... I didn't need to accept everything she gave me, like her fears that people would let you down when you needed them, or the conviction that danger lurked behind every unguarded moment. This part of my inheritance I gently buried in the Leipzig cemetery.