I promised myself "No more World War II films or books." There is just so much out there and I feel overexposed. Then I showed up an hour early for an event and near the waiting area was one of those little "libraries" that almost look like bird houses, stocked with free books from the neighborhood. So I opened the little door and inside I found this book by Julie Orringer, and what was different is that it is a fictionalized account - that is to say an IMAGINED fiction based on her Hungarian Jewish Family's History. On the covers and inside were such praises by various reviewers. Could the book, published about 8 years ago, really be that good?
There is so much out there about World War II and the Holocaust, and frankly the Hungarian experience seems to be a rare event - as is, frankly, accounts by Christians in occupied countries such as Poland. So, not knowing - until the end - that it was based on her Hungarian Jewish Family's History, I sunk into this book as I has not with any book in a long time.
Primarily it is a love story beginning in the late 1930's and her grandfather Andras' story.
Andras gets a rare scholarship to study architecture in Paris in the late 1930's, where he finds a lot of expatriot Hungarians living and falls in love with an older woman who has a devastating secret past. He has a brother who is going to study in Italy to be a doctor. A brother who is supposed to inherit the family farm but would rather be a window dresser. Their future experiences will make their early struggles for survival while young students seem easy.
In Paris Andras and other Jewish students stick together, though some come from wealth. The scholarship is good, but he still has to earn a living and so he works and lives in a freezing walk up. Some of the people he trusted in Paris prove to have their own agendas when they find themselves back in Hungary, unable to get the Visas to stay in other countries, their dreams abandoned.
The brothers are called up to support the Hungarian Army in Jewish only troops that are worked like slaves. There are brutal commanders and their are kind ones; does everyone allow their personal beliefs to dictate how they will treat others while in their official capacity?
As I turned the pages and read the story, my anxiety increased, as the characters lived increasingly limited lives. As with any Holocaust/ World War II story, since most readers probably already know a little or a lot about how bad it was, there is and is not something new.
I value the greater understanding of Hungarian World War II and Holocaust history that I have now from Julie Orringer's story.
C 2018 Magyar American BlogSpot All RIghts Reserved
