Elaine Kalman Naves' childhood was crowded with memories of a lost paradise. Her father's stories about his years spent on the estate of the Counts Vaja in Hungary molded her childhood. Paradise Lost tells the story of a prosperous and eventually doomed Jewish family. The history begins with Elaine's great grandfather, Yakob Schwarcz, who managed the estate of the Counts Vaja. Despite an underlying anti-Semitism throughout the country, it was a time of great abundance and joy for the family.
This happiness was soon to end. In 1920, the Hungarian parliament became the first in twentieth century Europe to pass anti-Jewish legislation. Thus began two decades of repression as the nation's racism became institutionalized. Elaine's father Gusti was brutally harassed by gangs of teenagers and anti-Semitic teachers. By the late 1930's, Jews could not own businesses. Soon, they could not own their own property.
But in the first years of World War II, unlike in so many occupied countries, Hungarian Jews remained relatively safe. The fascist government recognized the value of Jewish labor. Gusti was sent to a labor camp. The racist officers were cruel but there was enough food to eat, and even periodical leave was permitted.
When Gusti went home in 1944, he was optimistic about the war's end. The Hungarian government was attempting to reach an armistice with the West and for it's 800, 000 Jews, the country was "an island of safety in an ocean of destruction". But within a month of Gusti's visit home, Nazis overthrew Hungary's government. The Germans shipped 500, 000 Hungarian Jews to death camps in less than two months.
Elaine's father survived but his wife, daughter, brothers, aunts, uncles - thirty-four in all - did not. Though he moved to Canada and remarried, he never forgot his family's lost paradise.
