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Jet Lag
"European Discovery Tour” was the title on the travel brochure. But as Ann Birstein knew, the journey that she signed up for included a discovery of the most unhappy places on the continent. Her little tour group, most all of them Jewish, was shepherded not only to some of Eastern Europe’s grandest locales but also to its most terrible, including the remnants of the Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz, and other grim reminders of the Holocaust and the lost Jews of Europe. Along the way in what became a search for her own soul, Ms. Birstein offers a moving perspective on a tragic people trapped by history.
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Ann Birstein is the author of ten books, both fiction and nonfiction, which include the novels American Children and Summer Situations; an autobiography, What I Saw at the Fair; and a biography of her father, The Rabbi on Forty-Seventh Street. Her stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Vogue, and many other publications. Her grants and honors include a Fulbright Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. She has taught and lectured throughout the United States, Europe, and Israel. At Barnard College, where she was a professor for many years, she founded and directed Writers on Writing.
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Ann Birstein is the author of ten books, both fiction and nonfiction, which include the novels American Children and Summer Situations; an autobiography, What I Saw at the Fair; and a biography of her father, The Rabbi on Forty-Seventh Street. Her stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Vogue, and many other publications. Her grants and honors include a Fulbright Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. She has taught and lectured throughout the United States, Europe, and Israel. At Barnard College, where she was a professor for many years, she founded and directed Writers on Writing.
78 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 4, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 13, 2017
Again with the baggage. I got to know Ann Birstein a bit because she was an ex-boyfriend's aunt. However, while this has interested me in her books, her stories are often not my glassele tea.
Jet Lag, however was different. Like The Rabbi on Forty-Seventh Street, this book was about a slice of her life - a trip she took to Europe especially designed to see both places that were relevant to her father's family before they came to America, and to see many of the places involved in the Holocaust.
It's an incredibly personal account of her reactions to both the others in the tour group, and to the places she saw along the way.
It's not an easy read, given the subject matter, but it is a compelling look at how what she saw and the people she met (and those that she could not meet because they had been destroyed during the Holocaust) affected her long beyond her actual trip. One of the most poignant moments in the book is when she realizes that even though she is "the same vintage" as Anne Frank, Elie Wiesel, and a couple on the trip where the wife had survived Birkenau while the husband had actually been on Schindler's List, she will never know, and cannot possibly know what the trip meant to the couple or to the others who had booked the trip. Nor can she really imagine what life was like for the people who had to live the horrors during Hitler's regime.
All in all, I found this to be a compelling read -- not because I knew Ms. Birstein personally, but because she is writing from her truth, and it shines through on pretty much every page.
Jet Lag, however was different. Like The Rabbi on Forty-Seventh Street, this book was about a slice of her life - a trip she took to Europe especially designed to see both places that were relevant to her father's family before they came to America, and to see many of the places involved in the Holocaust.
It's an incredibly personal account of her reactions to both the others in the tour group, and to the places she saw along the way.
It's not an easy read, given the subject matter, but it is a compelling look at how what she saw and the people she met (and those that she could not meet because they had been destroyed during the Holocaust) affected her long beyond her actual trip. One of the most poignant moments in the book is when she realizes that even though she is "the same vintage" as Anne Frank, Elie Wiesel, and a couple on the trip where the wife had survived Birkenau while the husband had actually been on Schindler's List, she will never know, and cannot possibly know what the trip meant to the couple or to the others who had booked the trip. Nor can she really imagine what life was like for the people who had to live the horrors during Hitler's regime.
All in all, I found this to be a compelling read -- not because I knew Ms. Birstein personally, but because she is writing from her truth, and it shines through on pretty much every page.
February 28, 2019
Title: Jet Lag
Author: Ann Birstein
Length: 78 pages
Genre: Historical, Travelogue, Non Fiction
My rating: 3/5
Summary:
The book is about author’s trip to Europe along with other fellow tourmates. A trip she always wanted to take.
My Take:
I picked this book as a part of book for discussion in Sonali’s book club. The cover of the book is intriguing and depicts journey. The story starts with author meeting her trip mates and the reason why she decided to take this trip. Little bit of her background apt for the book is mentioned.
The book then moves to other trip mates who too finalised this trip. The mystery behind why this trip doesn’t stretch for long and it’s revealed that the trip is for people who wish to visit the places associated with tragic history of the jews.
The story moves forward to various places in Europe and the tragic history is narrated leaving the tourists teary eyed. The history is narrated wherein some moments do leave you pondering on the cruelty the jews were subjected to during World War II.
The gradual bonding between the passengers is beautifully depicted. I personally loved the character of Rita. The heart wrenching part for me in the book was the poems penned by children before they perished. They are so touching. The facts of history just make you Thank God that you live in peaceful times.
The pace of the book does slows down at many places as you are left to wonder as to why such things actually happened. That time was simply dreadful time in history and we should always pray it never comes back.
The end of the book justifies the title. A good book for history lovers
Author: Ann Birstein
Length: 78 pages
Genre: Historical, Travelogue, Non Fiction
My rating: 3/5
Summary:
The book is about author’s trip to Europe along with other fellow tourmates. A trip she always wanted to take.
My Take:
I picked this book as a part of book for discussion in Sonali’s book club. The cover of the book is intriguing and depicts journey. The story starts with author meeting her trip mates and the reason why she decided to take this trip. Little bit of her background apt for the book is mentioned.
The book then moves to other trip mates who too finalised this trip. The mystery behind why this trip doesn’t stretch for long and it’s revealed that the trip is for people who wish to visit the places associated with tragic history of the jews.
The story moves forward to various places in Europe and the tragic history is narrated leaving the tourists teary eyed. The history is narrated wherein some moments do leave you pondering on the cruelty the jews were subjected to during World War II.
The gradual bonding between the passengers is beautifully depicted. I personally loved the character of Rita. The heart wrenching part for me in the book was the poems penned by children before they perished. They are so touching. The facts of history just make you Thank God that you live in peaceful times.
The pace of the book does slows down at many places as you are left to wonder as to why such things actually happened. That time was simply dreadful time in history and we should always pray it never comes back.
The end of the book justifies the title. A good book for history lovers
May 6, 2019
I took up JetLag on a recommendation from Sonali’s Book Club. That it was a World War II book was of course another big reason.
This is a travelogue..
..by the author who signs up for a European Discovery Tour – a trip that would take her to Jewish sites across Eastern Europe. She feels the need to explore her Jewish roots, to see the ‘origin’ as she puts it.
Along with her on the tour is a group of people each prompted by their own reasons. They travel from Warsaw and Auschwitz to Lithuania, Chez Republic and Hungary visiting all the sites of the horrible tragedy that was WW II. In Lithuania she visits the Yeshiva (Jewish Educational Institution) where her father had studied and tries to imagine what his life would have been like.
What I liked
The book brings home the tragedy in all its horror. Through Ann and her erudite guide we get to know of countless stories of life in the ghettos. These are stories of horror of course yet also of hope because people continued to believe that the madness had to end.
The Jews led almost regular lives, at least initially. They ran libraries, taught music and organised children’s operas. It is amazing how people kept on living ‘normal’ lives even in the most cruel, abnormal conditions. It shocked me to realise how easily we adapt to and accept whatever circumstances we are forced to live in. And that, I believe, is the biggest lesson history teaches us – to protest an unfair act no matter how small.
Many of them defied the rules too. They did it systematically and repeatedly till even that became their new normal. Above all, they wrote and photographed, constantly chronicling whatever was happening around them, leaving it all for posterity even as their numbers depleted day by day with groups of them being transported to the ovens.
Some instances talked about in the book will stay with me for a long time.
There were mentions of people like Emanuel Ringelblum the Warsaw Ghetto chronicler, Photographer George Kadish from Kovno, Lithuania and Abraham Sutzkever with his lyrical yet terrible descriptions of the holocaust. I spent hours looking each of them up on the Net and following their pictures.
The statistics are stunning in their enormity.
What could have been better
While the ghetto stories were inspiring as well as heart-breaking, the memoir didn’t draw me in. The narrative never became personal hence turned dull in parts.
Also, the people on the tour didn’t really come together as a group. I missed the warmth, the mutual sympathy that comes through a shared tragedy. Most of them had back stories but they were rather tenuous ones and I couldn’t connect with them with the exception of Rita and Max. They had both been at the concentration camps when they were young. Rita, as an 18-year-old, was incarcerated at Auschwitz and her husband Max was on the Schildler’s List. Their stories were moving, their dignity in the face of trauma, impressive. A book from their perspective would be worth a read.
I struggled with Yiddish terms and was glad I was reading it on the Kindle so I could look up the words as I went along.
Last thought: This one certainly deserves a read, however it is more of a fact file on WWII than a personal narrative.
This is a travelogue..
..by the author who signs up for a European Discovery Tour – a trip that would take her to Jewish sites across Eastern Europe. She feels the need to explore her Jewish roots, to see the ‘origin’ as she puts it.
Along with her on the tour is a group of people each prompted by their own reasons. They travel from Warsaw and Auschwitz to Lithuania, Chez Republic and Hungary visiting all the sites of the horrible tragedy that was WW II. In Lithuania she visits the Yeshiva (Jewish Educational Institution) where her father had studied and tries to imagine what his life would have been like.
What I liked
The book brings home the tragedy in all its horror. Through Ann and her erudite guide we get to know of countless stories of life in the ghettos. These are stories of horror of course yet also of hope because people continued to believe that the madness had to end.
The Jews led almost regular lives, at least initially. They ran libraries, taught music and organised children’s operas. It is amazing how people kept on living ‘normal’ lives even in the most cruel, abnormal conditions. It shocked me to realise how easily we adapt to and accept whatever circumstances we are forced to live in. And that, I believe, is the biggest lesson history teaches us – to protest an unfair act no matter how small.
Many of them defied the rules too. They did it systematically and repeatedly till even that became their new normal. Above all, they wrote and photographed, constantly chronicling whatever was happening around them, leaving it all for posterity even as their numbers depleted day by day with groups of them being transported to the ovens.
Some instances talked about in the book will stay with me for a long time.
There were mentions of people like Emanuel Ringelblum the Warsaw Ghetto chronicler, Photographer George Kadish from Kovno, Lithuania and Abraham Sutzkever with his lyrical yet terrible descriptions of the holocaust. I spent hours looking each of them up on the Net and following their pictures.
The statistics are stunning in their enormity.
What could have been better
While the ghetto stories were inspiring as well as heart-breaking, the memoir didn’t draw me in. The narrative never became personal hence turned dull in parts.
Also, the people on the tour didn’t really come together as a group. I missed the warmth, the mutual sympathy that comes through a shared tragedy. Most of them had back stories but they were rather tenuous ones and I couldn’t connect with them with the exception of Rita and Max. They had both been at the concentration camps when they were young. Rita, as an 18-year-old, was incarcerated at Auschwitz and her husband Max was on the Schildler’s List. Their stories were moving, their dignity in the face of trauma, impressive. A book from their perspective would be worth a read.
I struggled with Yiddish terms and was glad I was reading it on the Kindle so I could look up the words as I went along.
Last thought: This one certainly deserves a read, however it is more of a fact file on WWII than a personal narrative.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews