The Crate: A Story of War, A Murder and Justice by Deborah Vadas Levison – 358 pages
Book Blurb:
After surviving the horrors of the Holocaust – in ghettos, on death marches, and in concentration camps – a young couple seeks refuge in Canada. They settle into a new life, certain that the terrors of their past are behind them. They build themselves a cozy little cottage on a lake in Muskoka, a cottage that becomes emblematic of their victory over the Nazis. The charming retreat is a safe haven, a refuge from haunted memories.
That is, until a single act of unspeakable violence defiles their sanctuary. Poking around the dark crawl space beneath their cottage, they discover a wooden crate, nailed tightly shut and almost hidden from view. Nothing could have prepared them for the horror of the crate’s contents – or how the peace and tranquility of their lives would be shattered.
Now, their daughter, Deborah Vadas Levison, an award-winning journalist, tells the extraordinary account of her parents’ ordeals, both in one of the darkest times in world history and their present-day lives.
My Review: 4 stars – Guest Review
The Crate is a beautifully written true story written by the daughter of Hungarian Jewish Holocaust survivors. This read was not what I initially expected. The title can be misleading, because the story is much more of a memoir versus a typical true crime story. It reads more like a novel than nonfiction. This book is actually the weaving together of several stories that move back and forth between the present and the past. The author talks about her present-day life with her family, after moving from Canada to the U.S. She describes in vivid detail how her parents survived and escaped the Holocaust in Hungary, eventually building a life in Canada. The author also delves into her childhood and reflects upon how her family history has impacted her life. The discovery of the murder at her parents’ cottage retreat propels the author to explore their experiences and memories during the Holocaust and the trauma she feels as a result of the present-day murder. The detailing of the murder is another storyline that is woven throughout the book.
The author’s storytelling, specifically about her overprotective childhood, her family, and her parents’ experiences is extremely well done. I felt like I really knew the author and her parents through the eloquent and descriptive writing. I felt as though I was actually with her, sharing her experiences. Since the author was not aware of the Holocaust while growing up, and didn’t know why she had no extended family, the way she became aware of her parents’ experiences was particularly moving. The description of her parents’ experiences was one of the most powerful and heart-wrenching accounts of the Holocaust that I’ve read. The depiction of the cottage in Ontario, Canada stimulated all of my senses. I could feel how beautiful and peaceful it was, and how nurtured and protected the author felt while there. I was moved by how lovingly the author wrote about her parents.
The memoir portion of this book was more emotionally compelling and impactful than the true crime portion. Although the true crime portion was precisely and exhaustively researched, I did not find the storyline to be as interesting as the other portions of the book. The author attempts to draw parallels between her present life, her parents’ history, and the murder; however, the sections regarding the murder did not always seem to fit in well with the rest of the story. The story moved back and forth between her parents’ history, the murder, and the author’s present life. This became repetitive at times, and the timeline, specifically regarding the crime, could be confusing. That being said, the positives of this book far outweighed some of the minor drawbacks for me.
It is so hard to capture the essence of this book, since it contains so many stories and is so multi-layered. There are many universal themes that are covered in this book including: love, loss, war, honor, evil, search for self, identity and belonging. This debut book poignantly illustrates how the experiences of our ancestors’ impact generations of the future. The author writes about her family and experiences with unflinching honesty. I applaud her bravery for sharing her life and revealing herself to the reader with such candor. Review by Guest Fairy Ronna.
Quotes I liked:
Growing up in our house had been like walking on glass, as if the people might shatter at any time. I had to step gingerly.”
“Whatever the reason, trying on Judaism for size reminded me of standing in a dressing room surrounded by dozens of rejects, zipping the one thing that –at last! – fit perfectly.”
“Years ago, I read a theory that all the moments of our existence are stored in fragments of light, that if we came across them floating in space, we could watch our lives replayed like spools of film. From the beginning of time, the events of history hovered forever in some parallel dimension, unfiltered, unedited. The idea resonated with me. It meant that all those who had perished and disappeared from our life still lived somewhere, in light.”
“I would be a keeper of the memories, a caretaker whose job would be to tend to them, to sort them like beans; the good from the rotten. I would lift the lid and dole out the stories so that they lived forever.”
“I listened to a soft voice recite the names of the one and a half million Jewish children who had perished, the voice that took weeks to finish a single recitation.”
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