Motherland
Beyond the Holocaust: A Mother-Daughter Journey to Reclaim the Past
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
A moving account of a mother and daughter who visit Germany to face the Holocaust tragedy that has caused their family decades of intergenerational trauma, from the author of Brothers, Sisters, Strangers
Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award
In 1938, when Edith Westerfeld was twelve, her parents sent her from Germany to America to escape the Nazis. Edith survived, but most of her family perished in the death camps. Unable to cope with the loss of her family and homeland, Edith closed the door on her past, refusing to discuss even the smallest details.
Fifty-four years later, when the void of her childhood was consuming both her and her family, she returned to Stockstadt with her grown daughter Fern. 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. Together, they found a town that had dramatically changed on the surface, but which hid guilty secrets and lived in enduring denial.
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. Motherland is a story of learning to face the past, of remembering and honoring while looking forward and letting go. It is an account of the Holocaust’s lingering grip on its witnesses; it is also a loving story of mothers and daughters, roots, understanding, and, ultimately, healing.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When asked to accompany her mother on a return visit to her native Germany, Chapman jumped at the opportunity. At stake was a chance to reclaim both her ancestors and her own mother, Edith, whose past as a Holocaust escapee had created an emotional barrier between the two of them. "She lost her childhood to the war," Chapman writes tenderly, "and, in a way, I lost my childhood to her." In 1938, at the age of 12, Edith's parents sent her from Stockstadt am Rhein to live in Chicago with relatives who treated her badly. Chapman, a former Chicago Tribune reporter, lovingly describes her scarred mother's decision to return to her hometown; the emotional catharsis and peace her return brings; and the various reactions her return engenders in the townspeople. (Some old classmates throw Edith a party, but others will not look at her.) Chapman's narrative is strongest when she writes as journalist rather than memoirist, letting the Germans speak for themselves. She introduces two gripping individuals: the town historian, Hans, who lives in remorse and humiliation because he failed to help Edith's mother; and Mina, Edith's family's maid and soul-sister, whose defiance and hatred of the Nazis raged in her until her death. Although at times Chapman's prose seems too sentimental, her report of a German town's reactions to a Holocaust survivor's return is moving and engrossing.
