Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

This is the second book of the author's memoirs.

In the first she wrote about how she and her sister discovered as young adults that their parents were Holocaust survivors and that the entire supposed family history was a lie.

I thought that was the gist of it, but there's more. In this second book she writes about the abuse she endured from her older sister as a child in this crazily dysfunctional family, and how, in the end, her parents declared her predeceased and wrote her out of their wills -- the real reason she "escaped" for good.

I thought, after reading the first book, that her family had gotten somehow gotten stuck in their lies -- lies that most survivors threw off once the war was over and they'd found themselves alive. But there was more to it. There were reasons they got stuck. They were still living a fiction and did so their entire lives in order to protect those who'd help them escape and conceal other intricate consequences. They were beholden to the rest of the cast of characters and seemingly owed them the continued deception. They were locked in to lies that distorted them and bent them out of shape for as long as they lived. As the children of the principals, Helen and her sister were inexorably bent to the cause despite being ignorant and innocent.

There's a parable I've already used twice on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, once in a review and once in comments (I think), and it fits here, too: the one about the man who picks up his new suit at the tailor's and finds it to be remarkably ill-fitting. But the tailor says, the suit's fine, just stand this way, bend this way, and twist that way. Now the man who has distorted himself for the poor-fitting suit looks like he's been run over by a Mack truck, but the suit looks great.

The family looks passable. But the author and her sister are emotional wrecks. Helen is lucky to have disentangled herself to the degree she did.

So the emphasis switches from psychological family drama to uncovering the mystery at the center of it all.

I've been reading a certain sub-genre of memoirs, about authors whose parents had kept secret the fact that they were Jews. And I'd wondered why that sub-genre fascinates me. My parents didn't keep that secret. What this book has helped me figure out, though, is that they did keep secret, to some extent even from themselves, what being Jews meant. They were so busy maintaining that now (after the war), it was a new day, antisemitism was gone as far as good (normal) people were concerned and only remained alive among the ignorant and stupid. I can see why, given they had been born circa 1920, and what I suppose they grew up with. Wishful thinking; that's what it was. And hope.

So here again is one of those stories that one conforms to by distorting oneself.

Conforming is collaboration, but it's unwitting collaboration, since the narrative itself is like the atmosphere: invisible, albeit sometimes perceptible by way of discomfort.

It took me until five or six years into the new century before my eyes were opened, and it felt like a miracle.

I have one more matter to discuss regarding this book, and that's the issue of loyalty. Some people can't stand a memoir or to hear somebody dishing out the family business like this. They think that what goes on in the family should stay in the family (or other group or institution), now and forever. I saw an ugly Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ review along those lines, and there are probably more.

Loyalty is important. We couldn't do without it; there's a lot of meanness to be protected from, and there are important norms to be maintained. But also there is a time for escape, a time to straighten up from distortions and grow toward the sun -- not to betray, but to live.

There are deal-breakers.


"And just as a reminder, this is a private board matter, not to be discussed publicly."
Non-Sequitur bt Wiley Miller, 9-1-2020