Books Set in Europe and Asia: Hungary, Poland and Israel

In Our Hearts We Were Giants: The Remarkable Story of the Lilliput Troupe ~ A Dwarf Family’s Survival of the Holocaust, by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev (2004)

 

This book is about the Ovitz family, a Jewish family from Transylvania.  In 1868, the patriarch of the family, Shimshon Eizik Ovitz.  He was born to normal-sized parents; however, he acquired a mutant gene, which made him a dwarf.  He married and his wife, who was of normal height, gave birth to two daughters, both of whom were also dwarfs.  Shortly after his wife died, Shimshon remarried a young woman, only a few years older than his oldest daughter.  Soon, their family grew.  Of Shimshon’s 10 children, seven were dwarfs.  The oldest child, Rozika, was born in 1886; the youngest, Perla, in 1921.

 

The family stuck together, with the normal-sized sibling caring for the other seven.  They built their own vaudeville troupe, known as the Lilliput Troupe, and entertained neighboring villages and cities with music, skits, jokes and other entertainment.  This made them well known and afforded them a means to survive.

 

Then the Holocaust came to their part of Transylvania.  All Jews of the area were transported to concentration camps.  The Ovitz family (minus one brother) were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.  The novelty of having seven little people in one family caught the eye of Joseph Mengele, and they were spared, along with their 3 normal-sized sibling.  They also convinced Mengele that several other townspeople were also family members.

 

This gave Mengele an opportunity to “experiment” on the entire extended family.  In exchange, the family was afforded certain “luxuries” not afforded the other prisoners.  They all lived in fear, however, never knowing what atrocities would be committed to their bodies.  Amazingly, despite the torture inflicted upon them, all of the members of the extended “family” survived the Holocaust.  They ultimately were able to immigrate to Israel, where they spent their remaining lives.

 

This is an important story and provides insight into the human experimentation conducted in the camps.  The book, however, jumps around too much, which interrupts the flow of the story.

 

Read:  January 21, 2021

 

3.5 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