Rating: 
Summary: compelling, provocative and deeply moving Holocaust memoir
Review: "Motherland," Fern Schumer Capman's extraordinary memoir of her mother's pre and post-Holocaust experiences, sheds an important light on a special type of victim -- the escapee. The author's mother, Edith Westerfeld, was but twelve when her parents, succesful and seemingly honored German citizens of the small, rural town of Stockstadt, sent her to America. This abrupt removal, one which was depicted with incredible emotional detail by Capman, had catastrophic impact on the child Edith, a corrosive and numbing sense of shame and guilt which lasted a lifetime until a heroic decision by Edith to return to Germany in 1990 permitted her to understand her assiduously barricaded childhood, the town which was her motherland, and the one loving figure who emerges, nearly fifty years after the Holocaust, as the genuine heroine of the memoir. Chapman poses no easy questions in this painful memoir; her answers and observations, though steeped with hope and a yearning for both roots and family coherence, resound with the horrors of the Holocaust as manifested through her mother.Chapman, in graceful language, describes her mother as an "escapee," and the author postulates that escapees may have a more profound burden than actual survivors. Edith's life is suffused with guilt and the horrific burden of denying memory. "When she was only twelve, she lost everything but life itself: her home, her family, her language, her loyalties, her identity...Like a member of an endangered species ripped from its habitat to avoid certain extinction, she was left alone to bear her imprisoning memory, the unresolvable grief, and the full pain of surviving. The author is fully aware of the unique burdens this has placed on her. Using the metaphor of Russian Matrushka dolls, Edith had lost the larger doll (her mother); for years she was alone, but when Fern was born, once again there were two dolls. But "the relative sizes were reversed -- the daughter held and protected the mother. I became her mother because she needed one more than I did." Fern attains maturity in a household cut off from its own history; she becomes the means to "restoration, restitution, resurrection. I am a replacement for her lost family." Fern and Edith's journey to Germany in 1990 brings the latter face to face with her past and the former face to face with her mother. A class reunion, stilted and nerve-wracking, brings little comfort to Edith, and a profoundly shaken and guilt-racked man eventually provides companionship and an inkling to the ease at which the "good Germans" of Stockstadt became active participants or silent collaborators with the Nazis. It is Edith's former caretaker, Mina, however, who emerges as the luminescent figure in this memoir. The product of a poor family, Mina attained employment as a caretaker-companion to the Westerfeld family and quickly forged a loving relationship with Edith. Now shunned by her former community and living in a dilapidated remote rural home, Mina's life is consumed with memory. She exists as a negative image of Edith. The two are fused in their polarities. While Edith cannot bear to learn of the past, Mina cannot let it go. While Edith has repressed all memory of her pre-Holocaust life and has continued to live, Mina covets her hoard of the truth and resents anyone who would seek to pacifiy the present at the cost of washing away the horrific complicities of the past. You need to understand that Mina is a moral giant. She continuously, at great personal risk, refused to capitulate to Nazi aggression against the Westerfelds specifically or Jews generally. As she eloquently and passionately proclaims in 1938, "I will never howl with those wolves." Fern, deeply struck by this simple, pure devotion to justice, inquires as to how and why Mina never relinquished her dedication to principle. Mina shrugs off any suggestion that she is different than any other German, "You cannot behave like this to another man. You just can't." And, so, Mina is filled with a quiet rage against the quiescent, stable people of Stockstadt, some fifty years later. When her beloved Edith quietly suggests she let the past go, Mina recounts, with excruciating detail, the damage and depradations the Nazis and the town deliberately enacted on her, up to and including refusing her permission to marry. "If you were here and saw what they did, you would be less forgiving." It is important to emphasize that this memoir is not about forgivenss as much as it is about understanding, and how understanding can ease the anguish of a submerged past and provide the possibilities for a genuine link between mother and daughter. Edith eventually confronts her guilt; she finally is able to comprehend, from an adult point of view, what shattered her heart as a twelve year old. "If my mother had been a survivor, maybe she would be grateful, and could have felt each day as a gift, every year as a mission. But as an escapee, she feels she doesn't deserve to live. For that matter, she's not sure she wants to...not without her parents." The moral and personal epiphanies in this magnificent memoir are hard earned and soaked with tears. Fern Schumer Chapman does not dare generalize from her mother's experiences or pontificate about the value of forgiving and forgetting, of getting on with life, or putting the past in its proper place. To both Edith and Fern, the past is too profound, too precious, too precarious. Yet, by memoir's end, they and we realized that without the past, there is no hope for the future.
Rating:
Summary: Book Clubs Must Read
Review: A Wonderful Book!
Beautifully written. So much to talk about! A mother daughter story of understanding and forgiveness.
The author, Fern, grew up in a home where the past was not discussed. Not until she was an adult, and pregnant with her third child, was her mother, Edith, willing to discuss her childhood. Fern and her mother travelled back to Germany together to see where Edith grew up, as one of two Jewish families in a small town where her family had lived for over 200 years. Edith's parents sent her out of Germany, to live in safety with relatives in Chicago, just before Kristallnacht.
Whether this was the ultimate act of unselfish parental love, or whether it was cruel makes riveting conversation between Fern and her mother. This book is wonderful for book club discussions.
It is a memoir that reads like fiction.
Beautifully written, a good read, but not difficult.
Many topics to discuss - mother/daughter relationships on many levels, the sacrifices we make for our children, what we pass on to them intentionally and unintentionally. Survivor guilt versus escapee guilt. The burdens - positive and negative- that we carry from our past. Vivid characters, stunning descriptions, can't put it down dialog. I can't wait for her to write another book! I was concerned that it might be holocaust heavy, but it is not.
I have recomended Motherland to readers of all ages and religions, and everyone has loved it. It has quickly become the hot book club book in the Chicago area. So many book clubs around here have discussed it, and are raving about it. Stores can't keep it on the shelves. It appeals to all of us, who are mothers and daughters. Don't miss Motherland as an outstanding book club choice.
Rating:
Summary: Book Clubs Must Read
Review: A Wonderful Book!
Beautifully written. So much to talk about! A mother daughter story of understanding and forgiveness.
The author, Fern, grew up in a home where the past was not discussed. Not until she was an adult, and pregnant with her third child, was her mother, Edith, willing to discuss her childhood. Fern and her mother travelled back to Germany together to see where Edith grew up, as one of two Jewish families in a small town where her family had lived for over 200 years. Edith's parents sent her out of Germany, to live in safety with relatives in Chicago, just before Kristallnacht.
Whether this was the ultimate act of unselfish parental love, or whether it was cruel makes riveting conversation between Fern and her mother. This book is wonderful for book club discussions.
It is a memoir that reads like fiction.
Beautifully written, a good read, but not difficult.
Many topics to discuss - mother/daughter relationships on many levels, the sacrifices we make for our children, what we pass on to them intentionally and unintentionally. Survivor guilt versus escapee guilt. The burdens - positive and negative- that we carry from our past. Vivid characters, stunning descriptions, can't put it down dialog. I can't wait for her to write another book! I was concerned that it might be holocaust heavy, but it is not.
I have recomended Motherland to readers of all ages and religions, and everyone has loved it. It has quickly become the hot book club book in the Chicago area. So many book clubs around here have discussed it, and are raving about it. Stores can't keep it on the shelves. It appeals to all of us, who are mothers and daughters. For background, see the discussion guide, or go to the author's website. Don't miss Motherland as an outstanding book club choice.
Rating:
Summary: Reads like a novel
Review: I met the author at a conference and bought her book. I started it right away and had trouble putting it down. The past is not a thing that can be re-created; it is a story to be told and Ms. Chapman has told her story, and her mother's story, and the story of so many others, extremely well. And it is an important story: the effects of the Holocaust upon the next generation, and upon Germans who would rather forget all about it, and upon children who know next to nothing of what happened to their grandparents. I recommend it to everyone!
Rating:
Summary: Vietnam Vet
Review: I recently purchased your book and happened to glance at the back cover. From that point on I could not put your book down until I had read it from cover to cover. I was memorized! I AM YOUR MOTHER!
I'm a Vietnam combat veteran and used the same ploy as your mother - denial and never talk about it. My wife and three sons bore the brunt of my walled memories. And, unfortunately, in order to bury Vietnam I also buried most of my youth.
I recently retired and the unexpected free time has caused my walls to crumble and my nights are filled with nightmares. Part of my counseling is to write about my trauma. You have inspired me to take these outpourings, organize them and get them published. I intend to "look fear in the face" and share my burden with others who may face the same hardships I do. Like your mom, I want to "be here now."
Rating:
Summary: THE LONG AFTERMATH OF WWII
Review: Motherland is a story of high values and the results of degredation in the past. It is the relationships of people; many people from close relatives to acquaintences and how each of us are truly dependent on each other. I believe this book points out that what happens to one of us happens to all. This is a story of love and understanding and resolve. The journey was long and painful, but most rewarding to the reader. A true story you should not soon forget.
Rating:
Summary: A Most Compelling Read
Review: This book is a "must read" for book discussion groups. Not only is the story of Fern and her mother compelling, there are so many themes that beg for discussion. The mother-daughter theme has been addressed in other reviews, but the theme of forgiveness of self and others resonates throughout the story for Fern, her mother and the villagers in Germany.
Rating:
Summary: It will touch your mind, your heart and your spirit.
Review: This is a beatiful memoir of a mother and daughter who not only reclaim the past, but reclaim each other. Fern Schumer Chapman opens her soul and allows us to join them on their private journey to Germany where her mother's hidden past has put a rift in their present day relationship. By returning to her homeland, and upon seeing her former classmates, Edith delcares that she "paid a terrible price for a better life." I felt the true emotions of forgiveness and reconciliation they both shared. You will feel that you are on this journey with them, and not merely a casual reader. This is a captivating book to be shared and enjoyed by anyone who is a mother or daughter.
Rating:
Summary: It will touch your mind, your heart and your spirit.
Review: This is a beatiful memoir of a mother and daughter who not only reclaim the past, but reclaim each other. Fern Schumer Chapman opens her soul and allows us to join them on their private journey to Germany where her mother's hidden past has put a rift in their present day relationship. By returning to her homeland, and upon seeing her former classmates, Edith delcares that she "paid a terrible price for a better life." I felt the true emotions of forgiveness and reconciliation they both shared. You will feel that you are on this journey with them, and not merely a casual reader. This is a captivating book to be shared and enjoyed by anyone who is a mother or daughter.
Rating:
Summary: Everyone must read this book
Review: This is a book you will not be able to put down until the very end. Not only is the story extremely gripping, but Fern's use of language is exquisite. Time after time I found myself marveling at the combinations of words she chose to describe things, and their chilling effect on me. She is a truly gifted writer. Each page forces you to continue to the next page, like you're being pulled by a magnet; the end of each chapter leaves you desperate to continue in order to learn the answer to the little mystery she has planted there. "What did he mean by that??" "What did this friend know that she isn't revealing yet?" "How did she cope with that?" While I have heard many stories over the years of Holocaust survival, I kept being awestruck that this actually happened to a very real person, and tried to fathom how such episodes could have occurred and must have felt...Add to that the element of the mending of the mother-daughter relationship, and you have a book that everyone simply must read. I am telling everybody I know to buy and read this book, and then tell everyone they know to do the same.
|
