Customer Reviews

The Pages In Between: A Holocaust Legacy of Two Families, One Home

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A Jewish baby is born in a Polish ghetto in 1942. In an attempt to save her life, her father asks a Polish gentile woman to look after his young daughter, telling her that he'll be back after the war. Indeed he does return and these two are some of the only members of their family who survive the holocaust. The frightened little girl and her father, a stranger to her, go to Sweden for a few years and then on to the United States where this little girl grows up, marries, and becomes a mother.

Erin Einhorn, a reporter, must have known she had quite a story on her hands, or at the very least a fascinating family history, because the little girl in the story was her mother, Irene Rozenblum Einhorn. Despite her mother's long reluctance and disinterest in speaking of her past, Einhorn is determined to find out who this family is who saved her mother and made her own life possible. This story has become The Pages in Between, an honest and revealing memoir which winds up going in a direction that most holocaust writing does not. Einhorn moves to Poland and is surprised to find that in this country that was ten percent Jewish before WW2, Judaism has now become trendy. There are Jewish restaurants and trinket shops and tours one can go on.

Einhorn visits Bedzin, the previous home of her family, and quite easily finds the house they used to live in, and in it, the family that saved her mother's life, the Skowronskis. The woman who cared for her has died, but her son lives there with his family. He remembers the little girl he thought of as his sister whom they had always hoped would return for a visit. Einhorn visits the family multiple times, taking a translator with her, and over time some frustration on the part of the Skowronskis is revealed. Einhorn learns there is a problem with ownership of the house, and the Skowronskis want to collect on a promise made by Einhorn's grandfather during the war.

Einhorn tries to do what she can to help them, and it turns out to be a terribly complicated and potentially expensive legal matter. At the same time, Einhorn is struggling with the somewhat turbulent relationship she has always had with her mother as well as some life-altering news.

I found this to be a quite compelling story and I enjoyed Einhorn's personal tone throughout the book. I was very impressed with the degree to which she tried to assist the Skowronskis. I felt as though they were giving her a pretty hard time and it would have been easy for her just to walk away. It's an interesting question, really. After what happened in the Holocaust, do people really owe each other for saving a life, or was it just the right (and obviously brave) thing to do? Who should property belong to? The people it was stolen from over 60 years ago, or the people who have since made it their own?

I found this to be a fascinating and unique story and recommend it.

The Pages in Between is a journalistic memoir and Einhorn makes the
most of this emerging and very elastic form of non-fiction. After
a mother-daughter road trip in which she learns new details about her mother's early life as a "hidden child" during the Holocaust, Einhorn rents a room in Krakow with two young Poles, researches Polish-Jewish history as well as the history of her own family, then finds and interviews the descendants of the woman who hid her mother. The past she uncovers is far messier and more complicated than Einhorn imagined. There is real estate involved; promises allegedly made; the intricacies of Polish property law. Einhorn sometimes seems like a Henry James heroine caught in a web of sinister European intrigue but the twist is that she's at the dead end of a sometimes benign but often brutally violent history of Polish Jewry. No traveler can escape the ads for genocide tourism (Auschwitz-Birkenau! Klezmer in Kazimierz!) in Krakow. A major part of the local economy is based on Jews visiting the sites of extermination and/or trying to document their family histories, paying locals finding their way in the new capitalism. In what I imagine must have been a long hard struggle to shape this book, Einhorn chooses to include all these elements in a memoir jam-packed with reportage, interesting characters, unexpected humor in the midst of grief, and conflicting memories - individual and collective. The book provokes many more questions than it can explore, let alone answer. A great debut book.

In The Pages In Between, Erin Einhorn has written a memoir about what she finds when she searches for the Polish family that sheltered her Jewish mother during World War II.

When she was growing up in Detroit, Einhorn didn't know much about her mother's past until she wrote a paper on the topic when she was in high school. Her mother, Irena, offered only the basics: Born in the early 1940s, Irena's mother died during the war, while her father, Beresh, survived. Before he was taken away to a concentration camp, Beresh offered a local woman money and his home to live in if she would keep Irena safe. After the war, Beresh returns and makes his way with his daughter and new wife first to Sweden then to the U.S., where he made a new life.

When Erin, Irena's daughter, became a journalist, her reporter's mind refused to let go of her mother's story, and she wanted to learn more. Taking a sabbatical from her job, she moved to Poland to see if she could find her mother's rescuers. In the story of her quest, Einhorn mixes historical fact with current cultural observations with details of her journey to create a fascinating account that is very personal, yet universal in many ways as well.

The story will touch a chord with anyone who has ever wondered about the people who came before them: where did they live, what motivated them, how were their lives different from ours? There's genealogical research and observations about Jews in Poland. Einhorn takes a look at historical attitudes of Poles to Jews and how lingering feelings of distrust resulting from the Holocaust continue to this day. But she also looks at how this generation of young Poles is different from the one that came before, and she candidly assesses the differences.

I think The Pages in Between is not just the story of one woman's search for her mother's history. It taps into the yearning that many of us feel about understanding our mothers and ourselves by looking at the events that helped shape us into who we are. I recommend it for mother-daughter book clubs with daughters in 10th grade and older.

Erin Einhorn has produced what is perhaps the most important contemporary work in any field regarding Polish-Jewish relations, a step toward healing that is just as important to those two cultures as Barack Obama's election was to white-black relations in America. But that is only one of the truly commendable achievements of this, her first book.

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 versus 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 weighs a multitude of historical facts and exorcises 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.

What one reader-reviewer here complained about--Einhorn's "complaining"--is actually one of the most impressive aspects of this book: 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.

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.

Erin's book chronicles her efforts to find the family that saved her mother from the Holocaust. She uses her journalistic talents to uncover the real story of her mother's early life, and while doing so, stumbles into a property dispute that continues to impact her life and the decendents of the woman who saved her.

Erin's book is half mystery novel, half memior. It is a very readable and personal tale of her time in Poland, which is a refreshing departure from the heavily footnoted accounts of other writers on the same subject. I found it hard to put down.

I also liked the ways in which it challenged common views of both Poles and Jews before and after the Holocaust. On the one side, it asks us to question the intentions of of the Poles who saved so many Jewish children. On the other, it draws us into a modern Poland that has deeply embraced Jewish culture. It also made me think about the decisions of the Jews who struck deals with Polish families to protect their children and property. What was their moral responsibility to these people long after the war's end? The fact that Erin's property struggles continue to this day shows that none of these questions are easily answered by either ethicists or the courts.

The premise was very worthwhile: A young woman tries to unravel the mystery of her mother's early life during the Holocaust. Unfortunately, by the end of the book, no real light is shed on the family's fate. What's worse, you have to endure pages of a spoiled young woman's self-centered experiences. Not worth the money, but even more, not worth the time...

Author Erin Einhorn writes a compelling account of her search for her mother's past - not much was known of Erin's mother's past except that Irena (Erin's mother) was hidden by a Polish family and later brought to the States after the war by Irena's father. Erin decides to go to Poland to unearth more facts about her mother's background and wartime story, finding the rescuer's family in the process, but then discovers a startling story - the son of the woman who hid Erin's mother (now an elderly man himself) claims that Irena's father (Erin's grandfather) had promised the Polish family his family home in exchange for keeping his daughter safe from the Nazis. If this was indeed true, then the debt was long overdue, not to mention the legalities of the deal.Erin finds that in searching for her mother's past, she has uncovered even more than she expected, and the story deals with how she goes about unraveling the truth.

Erin Einhorn's journalistic background makes this a compelling account to read as it delves not just into her own family background but the dynamics of Polish-Jewish relations in Poland throughout history, of the atmosphere of suspicion and distrust that still has remnants to this day. Yet, the new generation of Poles are also quite different than the older generation, differences that Einhorn reflects upon in the book. And throughout, Einhorn herself has to deal with the fallout from her search for the truth, a journey that has legal, financial and emotional consequences for her. A recommended addition to Holocaust literature.

I could not put this book down!

As a child of Holocaust survivors, I have been doing some research into my own family, and this book has inspired me to keep that research going. Erin certainly had the benefit of the conversations with her mother, and it was watching the facts of her mother's recollections be confirmed, adjusted, clarified or even completely change, that made the book constantly surprising to me.

I believe that all stories of hidden children, and Holocaust survivors have twists and turns that would make a person scratch their heads, however, you just can't make this stuff up.

I give this book my highest recommendation.

This is a gripping and touching memoir that reads like a detective story. Erin Einhorn has always known that her mother ,who was born in Poland ,was saved from the Nazi's by a Polish Family. Erin has always been drawn to this part of her mother's past and is frustrated that her mother only shares bits and pieces based on her own memory. Memory can be elusive. We may only remember the good things and block out the past or we twist it subconsciously in our own minds to make it bearable to confront. Erin isn't sure if that memory is chosen memories or if there are things that happened in her mother's childhood that she has chosen to forget. Erin was drawn to journalism from high school and she even wrote a story in high school about her mother's past that earned her great honor. She chose to use her journalistic skills to go to Poland and to try to find the family who saved her mother's life. She was able to track down the elderly son of the woman who saved and protected her mother. Wieslaw, the son, claimed that Erin's grandfather had offered them his family home in exchange for protecting and hiding Erin's mother. The details of this exchange were unclear and confusing and this took Erin along a path to try and reveal the truth. It was difficult, as she required translators and had to find and access old records in an age old system that was difficult to navigate to find records and documents. Along the way, Erin had to deal with many painful challenges in Poland and in her own life that affected her past and present.

This book held my attention all the way through. This is also a story of a mother and daughter and their journey through life together, including the ups and the downs. Through this experience, Erin learned that her mother had a past that was difficult for her to discuss and those experiences shaped who she became as a person, a woman, wife and mother. As daughters, I believe that many of us can relate to and understand this, I know that I certainly have. I was extremely impressed by Erin's tenacity strength and perseverence to find important keys to her families past. All of this while living in a foreign country where she did not speak the language. She had to confront and deal with the past memories of the atrocities of the Holocaust and the knowledge that many of her family members were killed. It is estimated that over 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust and this is something that we as a nation and as part of humanity cannot EVER forget. I highly recommend picking up a copy of The Pages in Between, it is a story that will touch your heart and spark an interest in searching your own family history.

Erin Einhorn truly captures the imagery, both emotional and physical, of her experience in researching her mother's story. You feel her anticipation, joy, frustration, sadness, excitement, and disappointment throughout the book. It is impossible to read this book and not wonder about your own family history and heritage.