Family History of Fear

March 7, 2016
Tuszyanska, a poet who grew up in Poland in the years after Hitler decimated its Jews, wrote this bleak memoir after she learned, at age 19, that she is half Jewish. Her Jewish mother was determined to hide her identity because she believed silence was safer: “You never knew when they would come after you again.” Learning all this startles Tuszyanska into a quest to discover every family member’s history, and her reporting ends up producing too much detail about too many characters. At times, her narrative has the feel of someone else’s grandmother telling you what each of the long-dead people in her black-and-white photo collection ate for breakfast. But at her best, when Tuszyanska is describing life under Hitler and her search to find the people who knew her family, she writes horror with great power in spare prose: a synagogue burns, a two-year-old Christian child is killed and Jews are accused of the murder, and a man saves her mother and grandmother from anti-Semitic bullies and then delivers them to the Gestapo. Under the piles of research, a patient and determined reader will find a tragic story about a woman’s search for identity.

February 15, 2016

Author and historian Tuszynska (Vera Gran) has written a fascinating and heart-wrenching family biography. Raised in post-World War II communist Poland, blonde haired, blue-eyed, and Catholic, she discovered at 19 her Jewish heritage, but it would take her years to investigate further. Her mother survived the Nazi occupation moving among sympathetic Christian households and passing as Catholic. By not telling her daughter of her Jewish roots, the author's mother hoped to save her from the pain and fear of anti-Semitism. The book tells the stories of Tuszynska's father and his Polish-Catholic family, her mother and her Jewish family, and how her revelations changed her views of herself and her history. Photos are included throughout and an end section outlines each member of her family for easy reference. VERDICT Ably translated by Ruas, Tuszynska's story is exhilarating and liberating as she unearths long-kept secrets but also heartbreaking as she faces the anti-Semitism from which her mother tried to protect her. This compelling biography is sure to appeal to anyone interested in World War II, Poland, or Jewish history. [See Prepub Alert, 11/23/15.]--Stefanie Hollmichel, Univ. of St. Thomas Law Lib., Minneapolis

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