This memoir, brilliantly rendered through the eyes of a
precocious young boy, the child of Holocaust survivors, is delivered
with great, but understated feeling, and without sentimentality. We
soon learn what Grunfeld means by the seemingly paradoxical statement,
“Both my parents returned from the concentration camps without their
spouses, children, parents or siblings”—not so much through explicit
reference to the experience of suffering under the Nazis, as through
the narrator’s not-quite-naïve descriptions of the pathologies inherent
in the dynamics of family. We read of episodes in the city of Cluj,
Romania, where Romanians, Hungarians and Jews co-exist in relative
peace under Communist rule but where ethnic tensions and anti-Semitism
seethe, not always under the surface. There are tears to be shed here,
but this memoir is not an exercise in the lachrymose. We are treated to
poignant incidents, and ruminations, especially about Jewishness and
identity, that are profound in their simplicity. And the book is chock
full of deliciously dished up details of the quotidian from the kosher
slaughtering of a chicken, through the budding of adolescent sexuality,
to a growing obsession for American blue jeans.
Although Grunfeld’s parents are unable to talk about their past, the
life of the family is acutely shaped by it. The narrator’s sensitive
awareness of the palpable loneliness in this domestic unit, and the
empty spaces in his parents’ history, as well as his probing questions,
many unanswered, makes this memoir comparable in richness to the
writings of Eva Hoffman, Art Spiegelman, and Melvin Jules Bukiet.
Gerald Sorin, author of Tradition Transformed: The Jewish Experience in
America and A Time for Building: The Third Migration, 1880-1920.
In
his touching memoir, Mihai Grunfeld takes us by the hand on a
remarkable pilgrimage of survival, love, sadness, yearning, oppression
and escape from post-war Romania. It is a powerful narrative in its own
right, but it is the sweet, unadorned, authentic voice of the writer
that makes this book utterly unforgettable. Steven Lewis, author of Zen and the Art of Fatherhood and Fear and Loathing of Boca Raton
Mihai
Grunfeld's compelling memoir offers a rich and evocative account of
growing up in post-war Romania, haunted by the Holocaust, yet all the
more delighted by the wonders of childhood, the intense yearning of
adolescence, the immense challenge of escaping to the West. Grunfeld
tells his story with the hard-earned wisdom of a man sensitive to the
deeper mysteries. His book has all the charm and magic of a late-night
conversation with a long-lost friend. David Schweidel, author of Confidence of the Heart and What Men Call Treasure
A
moving and lively account of growing up Jewish in Romania under the
shadows of the Holocaust and Communism. Mihai Grunfeld lets readers
glimpse the complexities of living in one world while dreaming of
another. Deborah Dash Moore, author of GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation
There
was a journey from communist Romania to an unknown promise land that
two boy brothers made, leaving behind parents. There is also a journey
of the human spirit that steps from the heart to seek the soul. No
reader leaves Leaving-Memories of Romania without remembering the
eloquent road signs they have passed. Larry Winters, author of The Making and Un-Making of a Marine
Mihai
Grunfeld, whose career embodies the success of American immigration,
has written a wonderful, truthful, painfully honest memoir about
growing up poor and Jewish in communist Romania. Being a Transylvanian
from a struggling family of Holocaust camp survivors, who did not
belong to the party intelligentsia, Grunfeld’s beautifully written book
addresses profound issues of class and ethnic identity in a way that
other autobiographical texts written by authors from more privileged
backgrounds have not. This underdog perspective is truly enlightening.
Emotional candor adds to the outstanding cultural and linguistic
sensitivity of this text. Irina Livezeanu, author of Cultural Politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, Nation Building, and Ethnic Struggle, 1918-1930
Memories
create identity whereas gaps in memory leave holes in a person’s sense
of self. Mihai Grunfeld is the son of concentration camp survivors. His
parents never spoke of their experiences in Dachau or Auschwitz. In
order to reach for a better understanding of their curtailed life and a
deeper sense of his own self, Grunfeld digs back into his own
childhood. In recapturing his own early life, the poignant and deeply
moving picture of his parents, their post war life and the scars they
bore, are powerfully presented. Grunfeld’s search leaves the reader
deeply moved. A most sensitive and thought provoking book. Samuel C Klagsbrun, MD, author of Loss, Grief, and Bereavement and Psychiatric Aspects of Terminal Illness