Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust, and David Duke's Louisiana [Hardcover]

Lawrence N. Powell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0807825042 | ISBN-13: 978-0807825044 | Edition: First Edition

This powerful work tells the story of Anne Skorecki Levy, the Holocaust survivor who transformed the horrors of her childhood into a passionate mission to defeat the political menace of reputed neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. The first book to connect the prewar and wartime experiences of Jewish survivors to the lives they subsequently made for themselves in the United States, Troubled Memory is also a dramatic testament to how the experiences of survivors as new Americans spurred their willingness to bear witness.

Perhaps the only family to survive the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto as a group, the Skoreckis evaded deportation to Treblinka, by posing as Aryans and ultimately made their way to New Orleans, where they became part of a vibrant Jewish community. Lawrence Powell traces the family's dramatic odyssey and explores the events that eventually triggered Anne Skorecki Levy's brave decision to honor the suffering of the past by confronting the recurring specter of racist hatred. Breaking decades of silence, she played a direct role in the unmasking and defeat of Duke during his 1991 campaign for the governorship of Louisiana.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

When Anne Skorecki Levy, a Polish Holocaust survivor, walked into a Holocaust exhibition in the Louisiana state capitol building in June 1989 and saw David Duke--former Klansman, neo-Nazi, Holocaust revisionist, and recently-elected state legislator--she became enraged enough to confront him, thus launching a grassroots movement that crushed Duke's political career. Now historian Powell presents the Skorecki family's harrowing story in its entirety. Drawing on Anne's mother's memoir and other primary sources, he chronicles the horrors of the Lodz and Warsaw Ghettos, and ponders the Skoreckis' luck and resourcefulness. Anne's parents held on to their jobs, but she and her sister had to hide all day in a vegetable bin. Eventually, and at great risk, they reentered mainstream society by passing as Polish Catholics until they emigrated to New Orleans, where, to their shock and dismay, they were confronted yet again with rabid anti-Semitism. A brief but effective profile of Duke stands in stark contrast to Levy's deeply moving story, infusing Powell's dramatic and insightful account with its compelling energy. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

[Powell] tells this tale with wonderful narrative grace and moral force. He deftly explores ethical compromises and nuances.

Walter Isaacson, Time

[A] harrowing book. Combines the sweep of history with the intimacy of memoir.

Chicago Tribune

[A] vivid story.

Jewish Book World

Brilliant. Even readers who are knowledgeable about the Holocaust should be warned: Troubled Memory has the power to sting.

American Jewish History

An inspiring story about standing up against evil.

Journal of American History

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 616 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press; First Edition edition (May 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807825042
• ISBN-13: 978-0807825044
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #716,432 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

An army brat, Larry Powell bounced around between Southern California and Japan, Maryland and Germany, including shorter stints throughout the lower 48, until a job offer brought him from Yale to Tulane University in 1978. He's been in New Orleans ever since. His publications have ranged from the American Civil War and Reconstruction to the Holocaust, even including forays into modern politics.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a wonderful mix of memory and history, September 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust, and David Duke's Louisiana (Hardcover)

Lawrence Powell set out to write a book about the David Duke phenomenon, about how a KKK leader and Nazi could sit in the Louisiana legislature and run for the U.S. Senate as a Republican. But work on the book took him in another direction after he interviewed Anne Levy, a Holocaust survivor who confronted Duke in the state capital. Captivated by Levy's story, Powell has produced a terrifying, poignant and finally a triumphant book about the Holoaust as witnessed through the life of one of its survisors, Anne Levy.

Troubled Memory is a beautifully written and tender account of a personal story that stands as an intimate history of Hitler's final solution. Powell's prose will carry you into the Warsaw and Lodz ghettos and into the vegetable bin where 6-year-old Anne and her sister hid from the SS. This is a book that makes the Holocaust relevant to every reader. It will fill you with horror and wonder, and it will move you to tears.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Unforgettable Story, June 21, 2000

By 

John C. Menszer (New Orleans, LA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust, and David Duke's Louisiana (Hardcover)

By the bearest of margins the Skorecki family survived Nazi Poland. This was due to the heroism and resourcefulness of the parents. They were the only one or one of the few families that survived the Warsaw ghetto intact and stayed together throughout the war passing on the Christian side.

This is a thrilling and frightening story. It is backed up by solid research. Author Larry Powell went to great lengths to mine the existing archives of each scrap of information bearing on the narrative. He embedded the Skorecki's odyssey in a warp of historical facts and contemporaneous documents. The reader will learn a great deal of detailed information about the Holocaust from this book.

David Duke's anti-semitism sparked Anne Skorecki Levy's present day journey into her past. The story of Duke's politics of hate frames this Holocaust account. The relevance of Powell's book is as present as this morning's headlines.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Klansman and the little old Holocaust survivor, May 26, 2004

By 

Dr. G. Paulsson "koyne-sforim" (Toronto ON Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust, and David Duke's Louisiana (Paperback)

Troubled Memory is the story of the Skorecki family, which survived the Hoocaust by escaping from the Warsaw Ghetto and going into hiding, intertwined with an accessible history of the Warsaw Ghetto. But is is also the story of Anne Skorecki Levy, 45 years later and transplanted to Louisiana, deciding that she doesn't want Klansman and Holocaust denier David Duke to become the governor of her state. On all three counts - as a tale of survival during the Holocaust, a history of that time and place and the story of little Anne Levy's dogged pursuit of the bigshot politician during his election campaign - the book reads like a taut thriller, a real page-turner from beginning to end.
In its linking of the Holocaust in Poland with the troubled racial history of the American South, Troubled Memory is reminiscent of Styron's Sophie's Choice - except that this is fact, not fiction. It's a compelling, genre-busting book that is not quite like anything you've read, and it leaves you both feeling good and with much to think about.