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The Pages In Between: A Holocaust Legacy of Two Families, One Home
In a unique, intensely moving memoir, Erin Einhorn finds the family in Poland who saved her mother from the holocaust. But instead of a joyful reunion, Erin unearths a dispute that forces her to navigate the increasingly bitter crossroads between memory and truth.To a young newspaper reporter, it was the story of a lifetime: a Jewish infant born in the ghetto, saved from the Nazis by a Polish family, uprooted to Sweden after the war, repeatedly torn away from the people she knew as family -- all to take a transatlantic journey with a father she'd barely known toward a new life in the United States.
Who wouldn't want to tell that tale? Growing up in suburban Detroit, Erin Einhorn pestered her mother to share details about the tumultuous, wartime childhood she'd experienced. "I was always loved," was all her mother would say, over and over again. But, for Erin, that answer simply wasn't satisfactory. She boarded a plane to Poland with a singular mission: to uncover the truth of what happened to her mother and reunite the two families who once worked together to save a child. But when Erin finds Wieslaw Skowronski, the elderly son of the woman who sheltered her mother, she discovers that her search will involve much more than just her mother's childhood.
Sixty years prior, at the end of World War II, Wieslaw Skowronski claimed that Erin's grandfather had offered the Skowronskis his family home in exchange for hiding his daughter. But for both families, the details were murky. If the promise was real, fulfilling it would be arduous and expensive. To unravel the truth and resolve the decades-old land dispute, Erin must search through centuries of dusty records and maneuver an outdated, convoluted legal system.
As she tries to help the Skowronski family, Erin must also confront the heart-wrenching circumstances of her family's tragic past while coping with unexpected events in her own life that will alter her mission completely.
Six decades after two families were brought together by history, Erin is forced to separate the facts from the glimmers of fiction handed down in the stories of her ancestors. In this extraordinarily intimate memoir, journalist Erin Einhorn overcomes seemingly insurmountable barriers -- legal, financial, and emotional -- only to question her own motives and wonder how far she should go to right the wrongs of the past.
Who wouldn't want to tell that tale? Growing up in suburban Detroit, Erin Einhorn pestered her mother to share details about the tumultuous, wartime childhood she'd experienced. "I was always loved," was all her mother would say, over and over again. But, for Erin, that answer simply wasn't satisfactory. She boarded a plane to Poland with a singular mission: to uncover the truth of what happened to her mother and reunite the two families who once worked together to save a child. But when Erin finds Wieslaw Skowronski, the elderly son of the woman who sheltered her mother, she discovers that her search will involve much more than just her mother's childhood.
Sixty years prior, at the end of World War II, Wieslaw Skowronski claimed that Erin's grandfather had offered the Skowronskis his family home in exchange for hiding his daughter. But for both families, the details were murky. If the promise was real, fulfilling it would be arduous and expensive. To unravel the truth and resolve the decades-old land dispute, Erin must search through centuries of dusty records and maneuver an outdated, convoluted legal system.
As she tries to help the Skowronski family, Erin must also confront the heart-wrenching circumstances of her family's tragic past while coping with unexpected events in her own life that will alter her mission completely.
Six decades after two families were brought together by history, Erin is forced to separate the facts from the glimmers of fiction handed down in the stories of her ancestors. In this extraordinarily intimate memoir, journalist Erin Einhorn overcomes seemingly insurmountable barriers -- legal, financial, and emotional -- only to question her own motives and wonder how far she should go to right the wrongs of the past.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published September 9, 2008
About the author
Erin Einhorn
4 books11 followersErin Einhorn is an award-winning investigative reporter whose next book, Dismissed: The Hidden Costs and Cruel Legacy of School Punishment is due out from The New Press in spring, 2027. Erin has worked for NBC News, Chalkbeat, the New York Daily News and other publications. She was a 2023 Spencer Education Journalism Fellow at Columbia University. Erin’s work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, The Washington Post and the public radio program This American Life. She tells stories live on stage with the Moth and with the Secret Society of Twisted Storytellers.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
December 23, 2008
I hoped for more. This title was the hook for me and was not as expected. It possibly could have been a shorter book with less details and more focus on the aspects of the title. Very little historical information was provided about the family that hid the author's mother. That may have been a nice addition. Besides the basic property dispute very little was written about the house. What was daily life like? And other questions were never addressed. This book is more about the author's discovery of her mother's childhood and how her own lack of family knowledge prevented her from really knowing her own mother. The emotional relationship with her mother was the focus and she made a point to detail it almost too much. It was certainly a meaningful journey for the author and one she should be glad to have done.
This may not be a choice for you if you do not find Holocaust stories or mother daughter relationships interesting.
This may not be a choice for you if you do not find Holocaust stories or mother daughter relationships interesting.
February 5, 2019
This book is about five times longer than it needs to be but the author has a nice way, so it doesn't feel like too much of a drag. I thought it had a lot of promise in the beginning, which kind of fizzled out about 2/3 way in. It was a good stab at discussing how complicated history is.
August 22, 2022
The original premise of finding her mother's former caregivers and home was interesting. The logistics of the search was weighed down with politics and government regulations, thus causing the book to drag.
October 18, 2022
It was a fascinating story but the book could have been significantly shorter.
April 13, 2014
A professional journalist, Einhorn exhibits remarkable objectivity in dealing with what has heretofore been a touchy, painful, and irritating subject to people on both sides of the equation. (See the many passionate, argumentative reviews on Amazon of "Maus" or "Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz.")
Far from being an apologist for either side, Einhorn recounts valid examples of Polish anti-Semitic incidents that led many Jews to condemn all Poles in perpetuity. However, she reaches beyond the knee-jerk reaction and indoctrinated posture of earlier generations of Jews, who taught their children to hate all Poles for the actions of some, or bought into those prejudices without any objective considerations of their own. (Even Newsweek magazine once ran an editorial describing Poles as "inherently" anti-Semitic, inferring some freakish genetic predisposition to hate Jews.)
Einhorn reaches back into the Middle Ages, reminding Jewish readers that it was a Polish king who opened the doors of his (then mighty) nation to the Jews, who were being slaughtered in every other European nation at the time. This was the reason that so many Jews were living in Poland when the Nazi holocaust hit -- because they'd thrived in Poland for centuries. She also compares the situation of Poles during WW2 against other occupied European peoples, people who collaborated more freely with the Nazis, suffered much less than the Poles did under Nazi occupation, yet were given a pass by Jewish historians. She covers all sides of the arguments as they played out in her head, applying her journalistic objectivity to her own subjective conscience as she weighed a multitude of historical facts and exorcised her own prejudices.
But Einhorn's book isn't just about Polish-Jewish relations. It's mainly about her personal quest to investigate the facts about her mother's tale of being saved from the Nazi genocide, and she applies the same soul-searching honesty to that quest, and to her relationship with her mother and other family members.
Einhorn's ability as a writer to illuminate in great detail the complex mental processes she endured along her journey--the doubts, fears, frustrations, not only of the unfolding story in Poland but also of her hot-and-cold relationship with her dying mother--is especially impressive.
Lovers of great literature will appreciate the beauty and fluidity of her prose. Unlike the blunt, clunky writing of some journalists-turned-author, this book flows like a stream through a fascinating landscape. Big ideas sprout from simple sentences. She has a flair for creating and maintaining intrigue, and is very effective at bringing her readers along on her journey, rewarding them with subtle revelations and colorful details.
If you have preconceived ideas about the Poles or life in Poland this book will likely change them. If you enjoy emotionally charged stories about family relationships, particularly mother-daughter relationships, this book will move you to tears.
This book would be a great gift for a friend or family member who is either of Polish or Jewish descent, or for anyone who loves great writing. It's also a great book for aspiring writers who can learn a lot from the author's masterful balance of language and clarity. I gave it 5 stars. Ten would have been more appropriate.
Far from being an apologist for either side, Einhorn recounts valid examples of Polish anti-Semitic incidents that led many Jews to condemn all Poles in perpetuity. However, she reaches beyond the knee-jerk reaction and indoctrinated posture of earlier generations of Jews, who taught their children to hate all Poles for the actions of some, or bought into those prejudices without any objective considerations of their own. (Even Newsweek magazine once ran an editorial describing Poles as "inherently" anti-Semitic, inferring some freakish genetic predisposition to hate Jews.)
Einhorn reaches back into the Middle Ages, reminding Jewish readers that it was a Polish king who opened the doors of his (then mighty) nation to the Jews, who were being slaughtered in every other European nation at the time. This was the reason that so many Jews were living in Poland when the Nazi holocaust hit -- because they'd thrived in Poland for centuries. She also compares the situation of Poles during WW2 against other occupied European peoples, people who collaborated more freely with the Nazis, suffered much less than the Poles did under Nazi occupation, yet were given a pass by Jewish historians. She covers all sides of the arguments as they played out in her head, applying her journalistic objectivity to her own subjective conscience as she weighed a multitude of historical facts and exorcised her own prejudices.
But Einhorn's book isn't just about Polish-Jewish relations. It's mainly about her personal quest to investigate the facts about her mother's tale of being saved from the Nazi genocide, and she applies the same soul-searching honesty to that quest, and to her relationship with her mother and other family members.
Einhorn's ability as a writer to illuminate in great detail the complex mental processes she endured along her journey--the doubts, fears, frustrations, not only of the unfolding story in Poland but also of her hot-and-cold relationship with her dying mother--is especially impressive.
Lovers of great literature will appreciate the beauty and fluidity of her prose. Unlike the blunt, clunky writing of some journalists-turned-author, this book flows like a stream through a fascinating landscape. Big ideas sprout from simple sentences. She has a flair for creating and maintaining intrigue, and is very effective at bringing her readers along on her journey, rewarding them with subtle revelations and colorful details.
If you have preconceived ideas about the Poles or life in Poland this book will likely change them. If you enjoy emotionally charged stories about family relationships, particularly mother-daughter relationships, this book will move you to tears.
This book would be a great gift for a friend or family member who is either of Polish or Jewish descent, or for anyone who loves great writing. It's also a great book for aspiring writers who can learn a lot from the author's masterful balance of language and clarity. I gave it 5 stars. Ten would have been more appropriate.
March 1, 2012
Erin Einhorn's mother Irene (born Irena Frydrych) survived World War II as a Jewish child in hiding with a Polish family. Her father lived to be liberated from the concentration camps and claimed her after the war, and they eventually made their way to America via Sweden. Irene always claimed to remember very little of her childhood, but Erin, who grew up to be a journalist, wanted to know more, so she began doing her own research. Almost against her will, her mother becomes interested in what Erin is learning, and Erin decides to extend her research by journeying to Poland and Sweden, despite misgivings over Poland's history of anti-Semitism. After a few months, she plans to bring her mother back with her to share what she's learned.
Erin succeeds in locating the descendants of the family that "saved" her mother, still living in the same home - which she is surprised to learn still belongs to her mother's family. The family who sheltered Irene, the Skowrońskis, claim that Erin's grandfather offered them the house in exchange for keeping his daughter safe, but nothing official was ever done to give them possession, and Poland's years under Communist rule further complicated property-ownership issues. Now that a Frydrych descendant has found them, the Skowrońskis want Erin's help with the house, and she finds that she needs to learn about even more distant relations as well as Polish property laws. However, she no longer has her original motivation for the project - just a few months into her year abroad, her mother dies of cancer, and Erin questions why she continues to do this.
Erin Einhorn's unconventional detective work and exploration of family history make The Pages in Between an intriguing story, although at times I found it slow going. Einhorn is interested in putting a narrative together, and one of the things that fascinates her is what would motivate a Christian family in a country with a strongly anti-Semitic tradition to protect a Jewish child from the Nazis; it seems that the motivation was a house. Meanwhile, she remains curious, and somewhat conflicted, about modern Poland's relationship with the Jewish people - and while it does have some relevance to her story, I found that the sections where she dwelled on that disrupted the book for me. The personal, family, and even property history interested me more, although sometimes the names got a little confusing.
Einhorn's writing is engaging, however, and despite the slow patches, much of the time the narrative flows along. The year in Poland is a frustrating and sometimes difficult one. I empathized with her struggles and enjoyed her successes with her. The Places in Between isn't a feel-good book, but it's a well-crafted and at times fascinating one.
Erin succeeds in locating the descendants of the family that "saved" her mother, still living in the same home - which she is surprised to learn still belongs to her mother's family. The family who sheltered Irene, the Skowrońskis, claim that Erin's grandfather offered them the house in exchange for keeping his daughter safe, but nothing official was ever done to give them possession, and Poland's years under Communist rule further complicated property-ownership issues. Now that a Frydrych descendant has found them, the Skowrońskis want Erin's help with the house, and she finds that she needs to learn about even more distant relations as well as Polish property laws. However, she no longer has her original motivation for the project - just a few months into her year abroad, her mother dies of cancer, and Erin questions why she continues to do this.
Erin Einhorn's unconventional detective work and exploration of family history make The Pages in Between an intriguing story, although at times I found it slow going. Einhorn is interested in putting a narrative together, and one of the things that fascinates her is what would motivate a Christian family in a country with a strongly anti-Semitic tradition to protect a Jewish child from the Nazis; it seems that the motivation was a house. Meanwhile, she remains curious, and somewhat conflicted, about modern Poland's relationship with the Jewish people - and while it does have some relevance to her story, I found that the sections where she dwelled on that disrupted the book for me. The personal, family, and even property history interested me more, although sometimes the names got a little confusing.
Einhorn's writing is engaging, however, and despite the slow patches, much of the time the narrative flows along. The year in Poland is a frustrating and sometimes difficult one. I empathized with her struggles and enjoyed her successes with her. The Places in Between isn't a feel-good book, but it's a well-crafted and at times fascinating one.
November 13, 2008
What an unusual "holocaust" book. This one is not the story of a holocaust survivor. Rather, it's the story of her daughter's journey to learn more about her mother's story. Erin moves to Poland for a year to try to learn more about her mother's time during the war, when she was cared for by a Polish woman. She learns that although her grandfather deeded use of the home he had to abandon to his daughter's caretaker, the now-deceased caretaker's family is less than happy with the current situation.
Erin learns details of her family history, and tries to come to terms with a Poland that is almost devoid of Jewish residents but which is fascinated by Jews and Judaica. She tries to balance preserved Auschwitz with real-life Polish towns and cities that have moved past the war. Her mother's caretaker's family welcomes her, but then pesters her relentlessly to take care of the real estate situation. Are they horrible people? Jew haters? She's not sure what to make of them.
So this is really the story of Erin's attempt to reconcile the sadness and horror that are her family's history with the need to move beyond. Although the ending felt a little hurried, there are passages where she gives the reader the ability to see from her (constantly shifting) perspective. One passage that I found especially moving is the following. Erin has found some documentation of her great-uncle's wedding when some of the family who had already moved to the US went back to Poland to celebrate:
"It was difficult to imagine them on December 31, 1938 . . . and not see the celebrants as stupidly doomed, like climbers on the summit of Everest, oblivious to the storm below, laughing and snapping pictures. I wanted to reach back through the years and shout at them: "You fools! Stop dancing! Get out! . . . " Standing on this end of the time line, trying to see back through the decades, through the nineties, the eighties, the seventies, the sixties, the fifties, the fire and fury that scorched through the blistering forties, it was impossible to see them clearly beyond the smoke, beyond the blood and the horror . . . ."
A really fascinating read. (When the author was struggling with this story -- she's a journalist -- she submitted it as an idea to Ira Glass' "This American Life". Here's a link to that story: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio...
Erin learns details of her family history, and tries to come to terms with a Poland that is almost devoid of Jewish residents but which is fascinated by Jews and Judaica. She tries to balance preserved Auschwitz with real-life Polish towns and cities that have moved past the war. Her mother's caretaker's family welcomes her, but then pesters her relentlessly to take care of the real estate situation. Are they horrible people? Jew haters? She's not sure what to make of them.
So this is really the story of Erin's attempt to reconcile the sadness and horror that are her family's history with the need to move beyond. Although the ending felt a little hurried, there are passages where she gives the reader the ability to see from her (constantly shifting) perspective. One passage that I found especially moving is the following. Erin has found some documentation of her great-uncle's wedding when some of the family who had already moved to the US went back to Poland to celebrate:
"It was difficult to imagine them on December 31, 1938 . . . and not see the celebrants as stupidly doomed, like climbers on the summit of Everest, oblivious to the storm below, laughing and snapping pictures. I wanted to reach back through the years and shout at them: "You fools! Stop dancing! Get out! . . . " Standing on this end of the time line, trying to see back through the decades, through the nineties, the eighties, the seventies, the sixties, the fifties, the fire and fury that scorched through the blistering forties, it was impossible to see them clearly beyond the smoke, beyond the blood and the horror . . . ."
A really fascinating read. (When the author was struggling with this story -- she's a journalist -- she submitted it as an idea to Ira Glass' "This American Life". Here's a link to that story: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio...
December 1, 2008
Journalist Erin Einhorn has always been curious about her mother's story of survival in Poland during WW II as she was taken in by a Polish family after being smuggled out of the Krakow ghetto. Her mother, on the other hand, was not much interested in discussing her past, other than to say she had been loved, both by her Polish foster mother, and then by the Swedish family she lived with temporarily before being reunited with her father and his new wife. Erin sets out for Poland, determined to flush out the details, and finds an elderly man who tearfully remembers his "little sister" who disappeared one day; and a complicated story of property rights with various generations of the family claiming that her grandfather had given the house to them in exchange for the life of his daughter. With her mother suddenly dead of cancer, and only a few extant documents, Erin tries to do the right thing, feeling more and more browbeaten by inlaws and the younger generation. What is the debt owed for a life that lead to her mother's survival and her life and her brother's? How many thousands of dollars should she spend trying to untangle the post-communist Polish bureaucracy that tried to destroy her family? And what of the current celebration of pseudo-Jewish culture of young Poles? No one comes out clean in this memoir, except for the family in Sweden who took care of her mother briefly. An interesting read, full of interesting dilemmas.
November 7, 2008
I first heard Einhorn's story on NPR on This American Life.
Einhorn's mother was sheltered by a Polish family during the holocaust. In exchange for saving his infant daughter, Einhorn's grandfather bequeathed the family home. Sixty years later Einhorn travels to Poland to visit the family that took her mother into hiding and who still reside in the same home. So begins the tangled web of Einhorn's journey into deciphering what actually happened. The story is complicated and full of bureaucracy.
Einhorn's mother is very uncooperative in detailing information for Erin, wanting to put that period of her life behind her. Even after thorough and painstaking research, the author unearths very little information and becomes mired in complexities without providing much substance to deliver a cohesive conclusion.
I found the author’s examination of Polish and Jewish history and modern day relations interesting and educational.
This story was captivating as an NPR piece and would have also been a fascinating short story, but based on the actual facts that Einhorn was able to unveil, it made for a less than satisfying book.
Einhorn's mother was sheltered by a Polish family during the holocaust. In exchange for saving his infant daughter, Einhorn's grandfather bequeathed the family home. Sixty years later Einhorn travels to Poland to visit the family that took her mother into hiding and who still reside in the same home. So begins the tangled web of Einhorn's journey into deciphering what actually happened. The story is complicated and full of bureaucracy.
Einhorn's mother is very uncooperative in detailing information for Erin, wanting to put that period of her life behind her. Even after thorough and painstaking research, the author unearths very little information and becomes mired in complexities without providing much substance to deliver a cohesive conclusion.
I found the author’s examination of Polish and Jewish history and modern day relations interesting and educational.
This story was captivating as an NPR piece and would have also been a fascinating short story, but based on the actual facts that Einhorn was able to unveil, it made for a less than satisfying book.
March 9, 2015
I felt like this book was a good follow on after reading Neighbors, about the city in Poland where the Polish half the town murdered the Jewish half. The author travels to Poland in search of her mothers roots. To find out what happened when she was hidden as a child by a Polish family. Along the way she talks about how Poles feel about Jews today and how there is a variety of views but mostly positive feeling about the Jews. Nevertheless, feelings of Jews who left Poland, and their families who know their stories, remain resentful. And this is fair in many cases. Most young adults in Poland did not grow up with Jews because they had been chased out (or killed off). Their view, though positive, is frequently tinged with nostalgia for cultural diversity they've never experienced but imagine only the positive aspects of.
The author's story about her family and discovering that the way her mother described her childhood and how it actually was did not always match up. It is interesting how sometimes unhappy children see their past very differently that others see it.
The author's story about her family and discovering that the way her mother described her childhood and how it actually was did not always match up. It is interesting how sometimes unhappy children see their past very differently that others see it.
October 22, 2008
Do you remember that story on This American Life about a woman who goes to Poland to find the family that saved her mother during the war? Well this is the book of that story. Her mother was hidden as a baby by a woman in Poland until her father could come get her & take her to the US. She never saw these people or heard from them again. Her daughter is fascinated by the story, & moves to Poland to find them & try to find out what happened to her grandparents & her mother during the war. She ends up embroiled in a property dispute with the family in Poland. She tries to help them, but is blocked by bureaucracy, unfamiliarity with the language, and the decades of bad feelings from both her family & theirs that she tries to unravel. Interesting look at the relationship between modern Poland and Jewish people today.
December 12, 2015
The author is much better at imagining what the past may have looked like than she is at explaining the present search for that past. My hope is that now that she has finished her research, she will write a fiction story based on the facts she found, but with the details from her imagination. That is the story I wish to return to.
The author's Mother was a toddler during WWII, and as a result remembered little of that time. Her grandparent's didn't provide much more that a rough outline of the past. So rather than being a detailed look at their family history, it is about the search to find that history, and the search was a convoluted and tedious one.
However, there are moments where the author daydreams about what might have been. She is brilliant at these times and they are too brief.
The author's Mother was a toddler during WWII, and as a result remembered little of that time. Her grandparent's didn't provide much more that a rough outline of the past. So rather than being a detailed look at their family history, it is about the search to find that history, and the search was a convoluted and tedious one.
However, there are moments where the author daydreams about what might have been. She is brilliant at these times and they are too brief.
August 27, 2016
This book was different than I thought it would be, but I actually liked it even more because of that. As a researcher I'm always fascinated by other researchers' processes, and I love when people will stop at nothing to find answers to their questions. Even though there was much left unresolved, I was very invested in Erin's story -- since that's what this book is about. It's about Erin and her quest to learn more about her family and more about her own limits and identity more than it's about her family. I've had a lifelong passion for my own personal genealogy and would love to embark on a quest like this someday. I think Erin handled nuanced politics and culture with finesse and I'm glad she let us follow along with her thought process, even when some of the logic was muddled by emotions. A very good read!
September 26, 2008
I found this story of a woman's effort to find out the truth about her mother's tale of holocaust survival to be fairly engrossing. It showed how family events that one thinks are confined to the past can end up having real emotional, personal and legal (!) consequences in the present day. The author went looking for answers but only came away with more ambiguity and questions.
It was also interesting in that it showed how broad historical events can affect the lives of real people, and that these traumas don't only affect those who lived through them, but also touch the generations who come later. In this way, it reminded me of Beloved.
The genealogy aspect was also very interesting - makes me want to do some research on my own family!
It was also interesting in that it showed how broad historical events can affect the lives of real people, and that these traumas don't only affect those who lived through them, but also touch the generations who come later. In this way, it reminded me of Beloved.
The genealogy aspect was also very interesting - makes me want to do some research on my own family!
May 16, 2009
I enjoyed the book, but came away a bit disappointed, wanting more. There were several different story lines that were each very compelling and had the potential to be absolutely fascinating in themselves. However, the author jumped around from one to the other in an inconsistent, disconnected manner. While personal to me and my own life experience, I especially related to her frustration in trying to separate fact from fiction spun from family lore, age-old prejudice and stereotypes, assumptions. The story became especially tedious in the details of the search itself and laborious recitation of her family tree. I agree with another reviewer, that it is apparent the author is more of a reporter of journalism - she got so close to making it more, but just missed the mark a bit.
June 29, 2010
What an overwhelming undertaking of researching family history. Captivating story into how lives collide and bonds are forged in one of history's most horriffic times. Erin Einhorn begins this journey with her mother's reluctant but curious blessing, just into the task, her mother loses her battle to cancer and all stories, truths and questions can no longer be addressed by any living survivors. Erin spends one year in Poland looking for answers, she unearths many details but in spite of it her original questions go unanswered. The message I take from this experience is that the Einhorn family is not alone in this, all the people who came out of this atrocity will forever be searching for answers.
July 3, 2011
American journalist Erin Einhorn delves into her family history, especially her mother's, and unearths ugly truths about the past and present, all centering around the upheaval during the Holocaust. Initially wanting to trace information about her mother's birth in a Jewish ghetto in WWII Poland, and the family home that was left behind during the war, she encounters a clash of past and present, and various interpretations about what actually happened 60 years earlier. The story itself is very interesting, as well as Einhorn's experiences searching for family history in modern Poland. But there was such an underlying feeling of hate, prejudice, and distrust on all sides of the tale, that I found it hard liking ANY of the main folks involved, including Einhorn herself.
January 9, 2009
A very personal account of the author's exploration of her family heritage. Einhorn moves to Poland for a year to learn about the land of her mother and grandparents, and to meet the family that saved her mother from the holocaust.
Sometimes the narrative becomes steeped in a private, personal experience that makes the reader feel slightly voyeuristic, but upon reflection I respect Einhorn for being willing to share on such a deep level. Her research and discoveries were truly amazing, and her family story is incredible. Despite the author bearing her soul, I never felt completely immersed in the story- not a captivating book, but definitely worth a read.
Sometimes the narrative becomes steeped in a private, personal experience that makes the reader feel slightly voyeuristic, but upon reflection I respect Einhorn for being willing to share on such a deep level. Her research and discoveries were truly amazing, and her family story is incredible. Despite the author bearing her soul, I never felt completely immersed in the story- not a captivating book, but definitely worth a read.
January 14, 2015
It was really interesting in the beginning, lots of memories forgotten or conveniently shoved to the side to be forgotten. The kids always wanting the stories of your life, one that you thought nothing of and didn't want to share, much less relive. The daughter is a journalist, young, full of herself and wants to fill in the blanks of her mother's life, so she goes to Poland to poke through the cobwebs.
What she learns of her mother's country challenges the stereotype of the Polish people and the Jews who once lived among them. It was an interesting story from a genealogist's viewpoint, but it felt more like a story told to pay homage to her mother's people.
What she learns of her mother's country challenges the stereotype of the Polish people and the Jews who once lived among them. It was an interesting story from a genealogist's viewpoint, but it felt more like a story told to pay homage to her mother's people.
January 6, 2009
Einhorn's story of tracing her mother's history as a child born during the Holocaust is captivating. Her examination of memory vs. history - as determined from tales told vs. historical documents - is particularly interesting. However, her descriptions of her own thoughts and feelings are somewhat distracting, usualy when they don't relate to her relationship with her mother and her discoveries. All in all, a good book. 3.5 is if it were available! A definite read for Holocaust students, genealogy buffs, and those seeking to understand family history.
February 4, 2009
I admire Erin Einhorn for going to Poland to live & learn about her family's history. I was personally upset by the actions of the Skowronskis though. I would have liked that family to be more noble, somehow (as I am sure she wanted, as well). I hope everything works out for the best with the house/land claims. My own mother-in-law had similar land issues with her family's home in Estonia but recently got the land back (even though she has no plans of ever living there again). It was quite an interesting read.
June 18, 2009
It's sort of Holocaust memoir, in the same way Daniel Mendelsohn's "The Lost" is sort of a Holocaust memoir. Both books chronicle the authors' search for an unknown family Holocaust story. In Einhorn's case, she seeks the true story of her mother's rescue by a Polish family during WW2, much of her research done unfortunately after her mother's death. I loved this book, read it in 24 hours. Very easy to read. I recommend, but might require some some background knowledge. Or maybe with my background knowledge it read differently?
April 28, 2010
I heard part of this on an archived podcast of This American Life. Einhorn travels to a village in Poland to find the family that saved her mother's life during the holocaust. It begins as a joyful reunion that validates the thrilling story she'd heard over the years, but soon dissolves into questions of memory and truth. Einhorn tries to right a wrong, but first must investigate what really happened between the two families,all while battling years of government bureaucracy. Highly recommended.
May 12, 2011
My initial thought was that it was unevenly written. I wondered if the author received an advance to write a Gilbert-esque personal journey, and then when the bottom of it fell out she still felt obligated to write something. It was a great discussion at book club, though! As a whole we agreed our main frustration was the emotional immaturity and lack of insight on the part of the author. It could have been an amazing story of a mother/daughter relationship. Instead it was a hollow, journalistic attempt to fact-check her mother's Holocaust story.
July 28, 2011
Picked this up because I'd heard the author's piece on This American Life, which ends inconclusively, and I had to find out what happened. As it turns out, the book also ends (somewhat) inconclusively, but is still a fascinating read. The most interesting parts for me were the author's attempt to untangle memory, family legend, and "fact" as found in the spotty archival record. I didn't always like the author (mainly because of a lie she tells for initially understandable reasons and then maintains for way too long), but appreciated honesty and willingness to lay it all out, warts-and-all.
April 28, 2013
Found this book on the table of the street sellers on Broadway. I bought it and was struck with the author's path. Truth, fiction, family stories, myths. I loved her description fo ther isolation during her quest, and her conflict with coming to terms with the relatonship of the Poles and the Jews. And as much as I wanted to know more, some information is truly unknowable.
Her book expressed love, conflict, beauty, friendship, family, mysteries, and the complexities of each. I can't wait to pass it on.
Her book expressed love, conflict, beauty, friendship, family, mysteries, and the complexities of each. I can't wait to pass it on.
November 21, 2013
Erin Einhorn's mother was saved during the Holocaust in Poland by a polish women who hid her for a few years while her father and mother went to the camps.When the war was over her father came for her and they went to Sweden Where she lived with a Jewish family there for several years She eventually emigrated to USA with her father and new stepmother.Her daughter Erin sets out to find some answers, First in Poland and then in Sweden.As always a story is much more than memory and Erin finds that social memory may not be the history
September 29, 2008
I started out enjoying the book and really got involved in the author's story and her family. The last fifty pages, I almost stopped reading it. I think the author is probably better as a reporter than as a writer. The book is laden with metaphors, which truly annoy me. Plus, there is sloppy editing, especially in the acknowledgements. Two names are spelled incorrectly, one of them being a relative of the author.
There are far better written Holocaust stories than this one.
There are far better written Holocaust stories than this one.
December 5, 2008
What I liked about this book is that it is REAL. Although it is about the author trying to discover the "truth" about her monther's experience as a young Jewish girl during WWII, it isn't tidy. The backstory never is clean and neat. What I especially liked or at least learned was the discussion about modern day Poland and its dichotomies as it begins to rediscover its Jewish past and identity.
July 2, 2009
The fact that the book ends on a sort of unresolved note left me a bit disappointed. But I am so very interested in reading about the life of other children of survivors, and how their parents lives during the Holocaust impacted their own. It's a subject near and dear to my heart. So on that level, I found the book extremely satisfying.
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