Mother and Me

May 15, 2006
Narcissists don't make ideal mothers, and Basia Padowicz Weisbrem was no exception. When her son, Yulek, turned five in 1937, she gave him a birthday card wishing him 100 years, a barrel of wine and a wench, which earned her a quiet lecture from the boy's beloved nanny, Kiki. Basia didn't even know what Yulek liked to eat or wear. But after the Nazis invade Warsaw, the Jewish Basia flees to the countryside (Yulek's father had died and her second husband was in the army) with her son, her two sisters-in-law and their children and nannies. Beautiful and manipulative, she charms the local authorities to get scarce necessities, but her self-absorption and lack of concern for consequences alienate her in-laws. Soon she finds herself on her own with Yulek, and both he and the reader learn an important lesson: in wartime, survival instincts trump all, and Basia is nothing if not a survivor. Padowicz, who now lives in Connecticut, tends to get bogged down in extraneous details, but his story is an engrossing one, part nighttime soap opera and part adventure story. His lively dialogue brings to life not only his mother, but his aunts, cousins and the many people they encounter en route to their eventual escape from war-torn Europe.

April 15, 2006
Padowicz, a Polish Jew, was seven when he and his mother escaped from Warsaw at the start of World War II when the Germans began bombing the city. The author chronicles their escape, first going to Ukraine in a frightful journey by truck and farm wagons, and then--in 1940--crossing the border into Hungary on foot through the Carpathian Mountains. Padowicz describes how his mother and other adults spent hours foraging for supplies--mostly food and firewood. He details his relationship with his mother, a Warsaw socialite who left his upbringing to Kiki, a Catholic governess who he loved. At the start of the war, Kiki returned to her family in Lodz; the author's stepfather joined the Polish army and was killed. Kiki taught the author about God and Mary, "their little boy Jesus, and the Holy Ghost." He learned the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the Act of Contrition, "all of which I recited fervently at bedtime." Much of the book deals with Padowicz's struggle over his religious identity as he and his mother stayed one step ahead of the Germans. There is too much dialogue here--Padowicz could not have remembered verbatim conversations from more than 60 years ago--but " Mother and Me" recounts a chilling journey during the war.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)