The eldest daughter of the Rabbi of Dubnitz had always been a little different. Not satisfied with the mundane expectations of her friends, she refuses the suitors she is offered by her family. Yet Miriam's daring draws her down forbidden paths; when a romantic liaison with a young Christian peasant is discovered, she is quickly married to a man from another town and sent away. His cruelty and madness send her fleeing to Warsaw, where she finds the love she has been looking for. Centered finally, with a new, loving husband, a flourishing business, and a beloved child, Miriam makes peace with her parents and begins life anew, but when the distant rumbles of Nazism become the roaring maelstrom of World War II, she is faced with the loss of everything she holds dear. Separated from her husband and son, can she possibly survive a world gone mad to find them again?
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In this straightforward, somewhat sentimental coming-of-age tale, a young woman and her family of Hasidic Jews in a village in pre-WWII Poland witness the destruction of their way of life with the Nazi onslaught. In 1935, Breindel Rutner, daughter of the Krovnitz rebbe, is 18 and in no hurry to accept the marriage matches planned for her. Her deeply religious father decries her flirtation with a gentile artist, whose nude drawing of her scandalizes the village, and she is sent away to marry a mad scholar in a faraway town. Her flight to Warsaw (during which she takes her first car ride) is the first of Breindel's many serendipitous escapes from adversity. In Warsaw, Breindel works in a bookstore and eventually marries the owner, a kind and devoted widower. When the military conflict begins, the couple return to her family in Krovnitz, an area of east Poland invaded first by the Russians, then by the Germans. Her family and all other Jews in the village are brutally murdered, but pregnant Breindel miraculously escapes the mass slaughter and manages to survive and give birth to a daughter, thanks to the kindness of two aged peasants. In her hasty summing up of events and characters' fates after the war, Helmreich relies on coincidence and improbability. Many of her characters are simplistically good or bad, as in a fairy tale, but Helmreich writes convincingly about the details of Hasidism. In her sensitive presentation, the Old World culture and religion came to near extinction like the local "chimney tree," split by lightning and hollowed out, so that "a person could stand inside it and look straight up at the sky." (June)
Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.From Library Journal
The Jewish experience in Poland from 1935 through 1945 is lucidly portrayed in this first novel (written by a survivor, here drawing on her own life story), which progresses from bucolic life in the village of Krovnitz to urban life in more secular Warsaw to the approach of the Holocaust, its devastation, and its aftermath. The tale, poignantly told in vivid prose, features a fiery, red-haired protagonist named Breindel Rutner. After she spends time with a Gentile boy from the village, Breindel's father, the renowned Krovnitzer rabbi, has her married to a messiah fanatic, who takes her back to his faraway home. Her escape to Warsaw introduces her to intellectual secularism. Here she works in a bookstore and marries the owner after she learns of the death of her first husband. As a mother and wife, she is most happy until the bombing of Warsaw begins. Then it's back to Krovnitz, where the extended family manages under the Russian occupation but is devastated by the Germans. Breindel survives and, with great tenacity, is able to reinvent other lives for herself. This book fits in well with other recent novels on Polish Jewish village life, Lillian Nattel's The River Midnight (LJ 1/99) and Chava Rosenfarb's Bociany and Of Lodz and Love (LJ 2/15/00). Highly recommended for all libraries.
-Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, MD
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
-Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, MD
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Curling Up with a Good Read,
By Joan Downs (New York City) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Chimney Tree (Hardcover)
This book is what people mean when they talk about "curling up with a good read". A generational novel that follows a Jewish girl(Breindal) from an innocent affair with a boy who turns out to be far more than he seems, through the horrors of Nazi and Communist terror. Breindal is a great character who combines an emotional response to her fascinating life coupled with a wisdom and insight that keeps you reading chapter after chapter. When you next need a terrific book for the beach on a sunny day or for staying in on a chilly autumn night, there's no better or more addictive read.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Wonderful Read,
By
This review is from: The Chimney Tree (Hardcover)
What a wonderful read this is. I'd call it a great page-turner--which it is--but that would leave unmentioned it's lovely style. The book offers a spellbinding story elegantly told. You'll feel you'll know Breindal as she encounters a world that is going through massive changes and her own journey from innocence to a wisdom forged from young love and the threat of extermination. But, above all, it is the fascinating story that explains why I, and three of my friends, each read this entire book in one sitting. You just can't put it down and are sorry that I has to end.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Jewish woman's struggle to survive in Poland during WW II.,
By
This review is from: The Chimney Tree (Hardcover)
Breindel Rutner, the heroine of "The Chimney Tree," is a beautiful young woman who seems destined for happiness. She is the daughter of Reb Mordche Rutner, the respected head of the Hasidim in the town of Krovnitz, Poland, during the 1930's. Breindel is a member of a warm and loving family and she has everything that she desires. Unfortunately, her life takes a wrong turn early on. Breindel falls in love with a gentile, and when the relationship becomes public, she is hastily married off to a man she does not love. Unfortunately, her new husband suffers from Messianic delusions, and she must flee from him to keep her own sanity. Breindel's problems escalate throughout the book. Besides having to flee from place to place to escape bad relationships, Breindel suffers horribly during WWII. The Nazis bring death and destruction to Polish Jewry. Many members of Breindel's family die, and she must use her ingenuity to keep herself and her child alive from day to day. The author of this novel, Helaine Helmreich, has created a strong and spirited heroine who evoked my sympathy and interest. "The Chimney Tree" is a sad story of a woman whose life turns out to be far less idyllic than she could ever have imagined.
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