Auf ein Miniaturbild klicken, um zu Google Books zu gelangen.
|
Lädt ... Béla's Lettersvon Jeff Ingber
Keine Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch.  PardaMustang | Jul 21, 2016 |   However....i just can't leave it there. This is also a book where the reader feels honored to have been welcomed with open arms into the personal lives of Bela's large family. Uniquely written with family letters included, during the historic horrid era of WW2, Jeff Ingber ( Bela's son ) has done honor to his relatives with this book. Yes, there are many WW2 / holocaust memoirs, and there SHOULD be, BELA'S LETTERS takes the cake. ( family tree and photos are an added bonus ) " Survivors struggled to balance the remembrance of love against the hole that love's absence created." (  ) linda.marsheells | Jun 17, 2016 | Zeige 2 von 2 keine Rezensionen | Rezension hinzufügen
"B la's Letters" is an historical fiction novel based on the life of B la Ingber. B la was born before the onset of WWI in Munk cs, a small city nestled in the Carpathian Mountains that belonged to the democratic nation of Czechoslovakia until being occupied by fascist Hungary and then by German forces during WW II. B la and his family were part of an extraordinary Jewish community, known for both its religious fervor and its Zionist movement, that had thrived for centuries until being eradicated less than a year before the end of the war. The book spans the years from 1928, when B la is a teenager, until his death in 2003. Through both B la's own voice and various poignant letters sent to him over the years by family members, it tells of B la's extraordinary experiences during years of harsh imprisonment in the Hungarian labor camp system. The struggles of B la's nuclear and extended family to comprehend and prepare for the Holocaust are portrayed, as are the fates of various members of a family torn apart by the war and Holocaust and the implausible circumstances that the survivors endure before reuniting. One of B la's brothers visited the World's Fair in New York in 1940 and was convinced to enlist in the U.S. Army Intelligence Unit. He later participated in the liberation of Paris and acted as an interviewer of Nazi guards at the Buchenwald concentration camp. Another brother escaped to Palestine in 1939 by jumping ship and swimming a mile to shore, and later fought in the British Army. Other siblings survived Auschwitz, Dachau, and Bergen-Belsen. B la also tells of his first love, a woman who urges him unsuccessfully to emigrate to Palestine with her, and of meeting and falling in love with his wife, Marika Leiner. Marika endures the terror of living on her own as a teenager with false identity papers in a city, Budapest, that is ravaged by some of the fiercest street fighting of the war as well as by the horrors inflicted by Adolph Eichmann and his henchmen together with the murderous Arrow Cross (the Hungarian Nazi Party). The second half of the book describes Bela and Marika's escape from Soviet-ruled Eastern Europe to Italy, their struggle to begin their lives anew in the United States, the crushing impact on them of their wartime experiences, and the feelings of guilt, hatred, fear, and abandonment that haunted them and the other Ingber family members. In "B la's Letters," B la tells of a family whose trust, amid the world's betrayal, lay only with blood. One's brother would remain one's brother. Not even G-d, who appeared to have looked away, was as certain. At the core of the book are the letters and postcards written to B la, which were his lifeline and remained so, even decades after the war ended. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
Aktuelle DiskussionenKeineBeliebte Umschlagbilder
 Google Books — Lädt ...BewertungDurchschnitt: (5)
Bist das du?Werde ein LibraryThing-Autor. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2
Béla’s Letters, by Jeff Ingber, is a hauntingly beautiful tour through history, leading us through the lives of one family via the precious artifact of letters, one of the historian’s best friends. They are stitched together with narrative from Béla’s point of view, the author's conjecture for it was written after Béla’s passing. This was a very personal book for the author, for it is his gift honouring family. He is the son of Béla Ingber.
Spanning eight decades, we follow Béla through seemingly carefree times as an youth, through the terrible killing time that was the Holocaust, through the aftermath and an arrival to America, where his fledgling family can finally put down roots again. Decades drift by, separating him from those terrible times. Children turn adult, granting grandchildren in turn. Siblings and close friends succumb to the inevitable march of time.
There is nostalgia for a childhood long gone, for the past of one’s youngest years almost always seems a better time than the present, ne? There is profound sadness and unmitigated fear at the horror of one of humanity's darkest moments, when an entire people felt the twinned weights of hatred and abandonment descend upon them. A time of slaughter, claiming millions of lives. There is hope in the aftermath, and worry as well, as shattered lives and broken families begin the long, slow mending process. Scattered throughout the book are pictures of Béla and other family and friends.
That's so hard for me to comprehend, the sheer numbers involved. I was reminded of my visits to the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, of the pictures magnified to cover entire walls, making truth hard to deny, of the near suffocating weight of fear and sadness still clinging to recovered artifacts, filling the rooms that held them- piles of shoes, piles of clothes, a railcar, most horrific of all, a clear pillar filled with expended zyklon-B cannisters.
Books like Béla's Letters, like The Diary of Anne Frank, Schindler's List, Irena’s Children, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, they call to us to never forget. They honour the past with remembrance. They are our collective Othala, the bitter part of our inheritance, the inheritance of us all,, for the children of those who suffered, those who fought, those who stood by, those who actively took part. None of us must ever forget.
I have seen reviews of this book other places that criticise the length, saying it should be cut down. At 500 plus pages, it is a long novel. However, I strongly disagree that it is too long, for a book following decades of a person’s life, and they were hardly decades that were boring. To understand a person, and this was as much biography as anything else, you must understand where they came from, and the major moments that defined their life. I was never once concerned with 'how long it was’. No, I found it to be a deeply engrossing read that flowed quick and easy.
🎻🎻🎻🎻🎻 Highly recommended. Perfect for those who enjoy historical fiction, especially regarding World War II. I am loathe to say '’if you like books about the Holocaust’, because frankly I would think something quite wrong with you if you liked them. However, to say 'if books about the Holocaust fascinate you’ makes more sense. If that's the case, this book is sure to call to you. (