Strangers in Their Own: Young Jews in Germany and Austria Today [Mass Market Paperback]

Peter Sichrovsky (Author), Jean Steinberg (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"With my heart I am not a German and never will be. . . . No heart can stand this sort of humiliation," says one of the 15 interviewees in this slim but devastating volume. Outwardly, these Jews, all of whom were born after 1945 to parents who survived the Holocaust, enjoy a well-ordered existence relatively free from neighbors' prejudice or harassment. But beneath the surface they are deeply distrustful of gentile Germans and Austrians; they live in fear and anxiety fueled partly by their parents' vivid memories of the Nazis and partly by what they see as an anti-Semitism that never died. They share the view that the elder generation of non-Jewish Germans feels no guilt about Nazi atrocities, while younger ones are abysmally ignorant of history and glorify the past. In the words of one subject, "Nothing has changed." Nearly all of those interviewed believe that the Germans are capable of repeating the Holocaust. Articulate, thoughtful, troubled and troubling, this collective self-portrait of Jews adrift in their native land is also an important probe of modern German society. It breaks a wall of silence.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This revealing book records the gripping stories of 13 children of Holocaust survivors born in the postwar period who painfully reflect on what it means to be a Jew in an environment haunted by the ghosts of the Nazi past. While the young Jews relate unique tales, their collective observations and self-analyses point to remarkably similar experiences: overwhelming alienation from parents, Germans, and the official Jewish community, often resulting in feelings of frustration, rage, and despair; and deep psychological need to justify living in Germany or Austria. Their generation appears to be psychically scarred, anxiety-ridden prisoners of the past who grope for the correct response to contemporary Germans' persistent inability to confront the Holocaust. Written by a native Austrian-Jewish journalist, this riveting book will appeal to specialist and nonspecialist alike. Benny Kraut, Judaic Studies Dept., Univ. of Cincinnati
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (January 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140099654
• ISBN-13: 978-0140099652
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,513,356 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read!, March 30, 2000

By 

Rabbi Yonassan Gershom (Minnesota, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Strangers in Their Own Land: Young Jews in Germany and Austria Today (Hardcover)

At the time this book was published in 1987, there were about 35,000 Jews in Germany, most of whom were children of Holocaust survivors. (Today, there are also quite a few Eastern European Jews who came after the Berlin Wall came down). Later, when I myself visited Germany in 1997, I had many conversations similar to those in this book.

"I'm proud to live with my family in Germany as a religious Jew," writes one contributor. "My bags are always packed," writes another. Between these two extremes of comfort and fear, there's a wide spectrum of feelings about what it is like to be a Jew in Central Europe today. These are 14 testimonials from German Jews, not as the public would like to see them, but how they feel in private, in the depths of their hearts and souls. A troubling, thought-provokng book that is hard to read, but impossible to put down.

5.0 out of 5 stars How the 2nd Generation Feels About lIving in the Land Which Tried to Annihilate Their Parents, May 24, 2011

By 

Helene (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Strangers in Their Own Land (Hardcover)

As a person whose parents are Holocaust Survivors, and who was raised in the U.S., I was curious to see how it was to have been raised as a 2nd Generation Person in Germany or Austria. I always assumed I would feel "uncomfortable in my own skin", but after reading this book, it has been far worse than that for the children of Holocaust Survivors there. Not trusting their non-Jewish peers, 'suspicious' of the history of those people's parents, and just plain, feeling terribly unwelcome there. How to reside day-by-day in a place which you call 'home', but has horribly negative aspects for you? In addition, the Survivors, the parents of these children, are always worrying about their children running into anti-Semitism. Wanting to protect their children, yet realizing that that is extremely difficult to do in a country which was Nazi Germany just a mere generation back. My parents never understood how someone like themselves, Survivors, could live in Germany after the war; Most Survivors couldn't wait to flee from the place where they and their people were almost wiped out from the face of the earth. It appears that the children of Survivors there, who had no choice in where they were raised, feel much more uncomfortable than their parents; it is the most disturbing, unhealthy place for them to have been raised.I wonder how it has affected them as adults, no matter where they finally chose to live.