Motherland: Beyond The Holocaust by Fern Schumer Chapman – 208 pages
Book Blurb:
One woman’s moving story of her journey with her mother to find their past and the tragedy that haunts it. In 1937, Edith Westerfeld’s parents–before being killed by the Nazis–sent her from Germany to live with relatives in America. Fifty-four years later, Edith decided that it was time to, with her grown daughter Fern, revisit the town she had left so many years before. For Edith the trip was a chance to reconnect and reconcile with her past; for Fern it was a chance to learn what lay behind her mother’s silent grief. On their journey, Fern and her mother shared many extraordinary encounters with the townspeople and–more importantly–with one another, closing the divide that had long stood between them.
My Review: 4.5 stars
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Motherland was an excellent choice for our book club as we had the added benefit of having the author visit us. Her story and in turn her mother’s as well, is one of sadness, guilt, exile, redemption and history.
A unique look at surviving the holocaust physically, but still staying emotionally connected with survivor’s guilt. I commend the author for staying true to the story no matter how her feelings may have affected her mother.
The healing relationship between the mother and daughter was explored well and ironic that their healing began in the place where so much damage was done. Harrowing yet hopeful memoir. Highly recommend.
Quotes I liked:
Memory for most is a kind of afterlife; for my mother, it is another form of life.”
-“Smells, I think, may be the last thing on earth to die.”
-“The past is a presence between us. In all my mother does and says, the past continually discloses itself in the smallest ways. She sees it directly; I see its shadow. Still, it pulses in my fingertips, feeds on my consciousness. It is a backdrop for each act, each drama of our lives. I have absorbed a sense of what she has suffered, what she has lost, even what her mother endured and handed down. It is my emotional gene map.”
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