Books Set in Europe: Budapest, Hungary

Strangers in Budapest, by Jessica Keener (2017)

In the summer of 1995, soon after the collapse of Communism in Hungary, Annie and Will moved to Budapest, Hungary.  Will believed that Hungary would be an ideal country for him to exploit a business opportunity.  They arrive with their young son, Leo.  Leo was recently adopted, but this story thread seem to have no bearing on the rest of the book.

Before leaving for Hungary, Will and Annie’s elderly neighbors, Rose and Jozef, put them in touch with Edward, another elderly man who is living Jozef’s apartment in Budapest.  Edward is a crotchety old may who insists on secrecy.  He is in Budapest to hunt down the man he believes killed his daughter.  The evidence he presents to Annie is thin.  Is Edward just grieving for his dead daughter?

While Will is out making potential business contacts, he meets Stephen.  Stephen acts as translator.  He is of Hungarian background, but lived most of his life in America.  After meeting Will and Annie, Stephen just happens to run into the young couple.  Is this a coincidence?

Annie has a need to help people.  She encounters young Gypsy girls, or as she quickly learns, should be called Roma, and wants to help them.  They offer her flowers, then demand money.  Because the American dollar goes far in post-Communist Hungary, she gives them what is actually tons of money.  Will is robbed of his wallet, which contained $900.  Other than reporting the theft, and encountering Stephen at the police station, nothing further comes of this event.

This novel was way too busy.  There are too many story threads and too many people.  The novel provide a clear depiction of Budapest, and having visited the city several times, I could visualize the places described.  Still, I got bored with the characters and the final resolution of the novel stretched credibility.

Read: August 4, 2018

3 Stars

Books Set in Europe and the United States: Williamsburg

I am Forbidden, by Anouk Markovits (2012)

I am Forbidden is a look into the life of the ultra-orthodox Satmar community. The novel begins in 1939 in Transylvania and follows the family of Zalman Stern, and his extended family.

Five-year old Josef Lichentenstein sees his family murdered and is raised by the family’s gentile maid, Florina.  When he is 10, he rescues Mila Heller after her family was killed running for the Kasztner train, an historical event, that transported approximately 1,600 Jews from Hungary to safety in Switzerland.  Her parents were running to meet the Rebbe who was to have saved them.

Josef sends Mila to Zalman Stern’s family who adopt her.  Zalman has several children, including Atara, who is about the same age as Mila and the two become very close.

Zalman is a leader in the Satmar community and his family must live by the very strict and rigid rules of that community. Following World War II, the family moved to Paris to escape the communist regime.  They live isolated from the secular aspects of Paris.  The girls attend a religious school where they learn how to observe the tight rules.

Atria is curious about the secular world.  She questions the fundamentalist doctrine and leaves the community to avoid an early arranged marriage.  From then on, she is totally cut off from her family.

Mila, however, remains religious.  She is sent to Williamsburg to marry Josef, the boy who saved her years earlier.  Their marriage is challenged with their struggle with childlessness.  There are strict rules within their community regarding their inability to produce children, which is a constant pain for the couple.  The novel explores a resolution that test the bonds of the couple.

I found this book a bit difficult to get into, but once I did, I found it difficult to put down.

4 Stars

Read:  May 11, 2018

Books Set in Eastern Europe: Poland

The Librarian of Auschwitz, by Antonio Iturbe (2012; English Translation, 2017)

The Librarian of Auschwitz is based on the real-life experience of young Dita Adler Kraus.  She and her family were Jews living in Prague, when there were round up by the Nazis and first sent to Terezín, before being transferred to Auschwitz.  At Auschwitz, they were placed in the Block 31, the Family Block, where, although men and women were separated, families could remain somewhat intact.

Fredy Hirsch, one of the prisoners, ran a secret school, to keep some sort of normalcy for the children.  Although books were forbidden, the school had a collection of 8 dog-eared and ragged books that had been smuggled into the camp.  Dita was chosen to protect the books.  The novel depicts daily life in the camp and the struggle to stay alive, while maintaining a modicum of humanity.

Life in Block 31 was hardly without its struggles, and one never knew when the Nazis would transfer prisoners to the gas chambers.  Many of the characters in the novel are real people.  The author met with and interviewed Dita when she was well into her 80s.  In the afterwards, the author acknowledges that he took some artistic licenses with the story, but does present a summary of the lives of some of the other characters.  One such real-life person was Rudy Rosenberg (also known as Rudi Vrba), who escaped the camp and wrote a detailed report to inform the world of the horrors of the concentration camps.  His report, however, was unheeded.  Fredy Hirsch was another real person who life continues to spark controversy.

Read:  February 20, 2018

4 Stars 

Books Set in Europe and Australia

The Mascot: Unraveling the Mystery of My Jewish Father's Nazi Boyhood, by Mark Kurzem (2007)

4 Stars

Read: June 11, 2015