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Vera: My Story
My revenge on Hitler is … a lifetime in which delight has reached me from a hundred sources, and been welcomed.
A story of courage, unconventionality and lust for life.
Vera Wasowski was just seven years old when German soldiers marched her and her family into the Lwów Jewish ghetto in Poland. She watched her father take his own life and her mother accede to sexual blackmail in order to ensure their survival. Her story is one of a child surviving hell.
After the war, Vera studied journalism at Warsaw University, where she threw herself into the bohemian scene. In 1958, she migrated to Australia with her husband and young son, to escape rising anti-Semitism. There she would carve out a bold career as a TV researcher and producer at the ABC on pioneering programs such as This Day Tonight. It was a wild time for politics, arts and the media, and Vera was at the centre of things, mixing with the Hawkes in the eighties, and forming a close friendship with artist Mirka Mora.
In his inimitable style, acclaimed biographer Robert Hillman captures Vera’s fierce and passionate take on life and tells her amazing story.
A story of courage, unconventionality and lust for life.
Vera Wasowski was just seven years old when German soldiers marched her and her family into the Lwów Jewish ghetto in Poland. She watched her father take his own life and her mother accede to sexual blackmail in order to ensure their survival. Her story is one of a child surviving hell.
After the war, Vera studied journalism at Warsaw University, where she threw herself into the bohemian scene. In 1958, she migrated to Australia with her husband and young son, to escape rising anti-Semitism. There she would carve out a bold career as a TV researcher and producer at the ABC on pioneering programs such as This Day Tonight. It was a wild time for politics, arts and the media, and Vera was at the centre of things, mixing with the Hawkes in the eighties, and forming a close friendship with artist Mirka Mora.
In his inimitable style, acclaimed biographer Robert Hillman captures Vera’s fierce and passionate take on life and tells her amazing story.
240 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 18, 2018
Dear Vera, I love your no shit, straight talking inspiring authenticity. This bio brims with a strong survival instinct underpinned by the importance of art, painting, books, music and expression - otherwise, what is the point? From her brutal and bleak childhood in war-torn, Nazi-occupied Poland to her critique of Melbourne in the 50s, Vera burns bright with conviction, humor, and hunger for life. Hanging out with Mirka and Hazel Hawke and producing current affairs programs for the ABC in the 70s and 80s, her story is honest and fierce. She does a lot of loving and a lot of living. Her voice and charisma leap off the page. What an inspiring woman. I’m not usually grabbed by bios; but this one is actually well written and carefully crafted. A cracking read.
August 9, 2015
You ever had that thing where you meet someone - maybe someone you know slightly, maybe someone you used to know - for lunch, and the conversation becomes so gripping, that you move to drinks, then dinner, and the whole thing becomes a long boozy experience that is both profound and strangely surreal? So in the morning, you think, "Did that really happen?" but you know it did because your world has shading that is slightly different to the morning before. That's what reading this book felt most like to me. A, long, intense, slightly jumbled, illuminating but in a hard-to-pin-down way, experience. Even now, awarding my "four stars" I know this one will be one of the most memorable books of the year, jumping above the "five star"s with which I could find no flaw, but which did not seize my heart with such a strong grip.
The decision to write the book in a first person, is of course, largely what creates this effect. And you can see why the authors went with it. Firstly Wasowski's one-liners are to kill for, her affectionate skewering of Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam during the dismissal is worth the price of admission alone: "Difficult to say which of the two is the more exultant. Malcolm now has an election he expects to win; Gough is strutting up and down the high moral ground like a Homeric hero. Couldn’t be happier, either of them." Another great, less affectionate, example: "Sure, you could sleep with Bob if you liked: many did." which then goes on, "But if you met Hazel first, you had the chance to choose a big heart, a woman who delighted in the lovely things of the world, in art and music, a woman of courage, a woman loyal in friendship – and you chose Hazel if you had any brains at all, any heart at all." And here is the bewitching heart of the book, the use of first person and the present, as if you were in the room with Vera, allows the reader in to the world as she sees it, and frankly I'm not sure how else you integrate the first part of the book, Vera's 'childhood' in hell, with the amusing, politico, artistic personality content of the latter half, without turning this into the kind of dispassionate account of horror that I suspect Ms Wasowski definitely felt would be false.
I have no idea what I expected when I picked up this book, but I guess it was along the lines of "holocaust survivor moves on to have great life". But the power of this narrative is that it defies such simplistic, or frankly comforting, narratives. Vera is not a victim/survivor, she is always first and foremost, a person. And part of that person is a small, desperately hungry, child who has seen people do things that most of us are incapable of really understanding that people do. Who knows that she herself is capable of things that we would like to think we are not. Who *knows* that survival is the lesser chance than brutal death. For me, one of the most powerful and upsetting, aspects of this was how this child never goes away in the book, she is held deeply and tenderly throughout the narrative, just as she is held deeply and tenderly within its subject. You can't simply undo that kind of hurt, the book demonstrates, it becomes part of a joyful, rich and generous life, rather than being subsumed by it.
So why only four stars? Because, as rich as the narrative is, it is exhausting to move through. I wanted, maybe, instead of a boozy day, a long week at a beachhouse with more chance to ruminate, to flesh out topics, to twist the glass and look from a different angle. I can't help feeling it's just a little too blurry, too rushed. At times, even through compelled to go on, I felt exhausted. Interspersed content with some chronology and dates, some sense of context, would have enriched the book, it felt to me, just as would have perspectives from others around the time. But for the memoir that it is, I feel grateful.
The decision to write the book in a first person, is of course, largely what creates this effect. And you can see why the authors went with it. Firstly Wasowski's one-liners are to kill for, her affectionate skewering of Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam during the dismissal is worth the price of admission alone: "Difficult to say which of the two is the more exultant. Malcolm now has an election he expects to win; Gough is strutting up and down the high moral ground like a Homeric hero. Couldn’t be happier, either of them." Another great, less affectionate, example: "Sure, you could sleep with Bob if you liked: many did." which then goes on, "But if you met Hazel first, you had the chance to choose a big heart, a woman who delighted in the lovely things of the world, in art and music, a woman of courage, a woman loyal in friendship – and you chose Hazel if you had any brains at all, any heart at all." And here is the bewitching heart of the book, the use of first person and the present, as if you were in the room with Vera, allows the reader in to the world as she sees it, and frankly I'm not sure how else you integrate the first part of the book, Vera's 'childhood' in hell, with the amusing, politico, artistic personality content of the latter half, without turning this into the kind of dispassionate account of horror that I suspect Ms Wasowski definitely felt would be false.
I have no idea what I expected when I picked up this book, but I guess it was along the lines of "holocaust survivor moves on to have great life". But the power of this narrative is that it defies such simplistic, or frankly comforting, narratives. Vera is not a victim/survivor, she is always first and foremost, a person. And part of that person is a small, desperately hungry, child who has seen people do things that most of us are incapable of really understanding that people do. Who knows that she herself is capable of things that we would like to think we are not. Who *knows* that survival is the lesser chance than brutal death. For me, one of the most powerful and upsetting, aspects of this was how this child never goes away in the book, she is held deeply and tenderly throughout the narrative, just as she is held deeply and tenderly within its subject. You can't simply undo that kind of hurt, the book demonstrates, it becomes part of a joyful, rich and generous life, rather than being subsumed by it.
So why only four stars? Because, as rich as the narrative is, it is exhausting to move through. I wanted, maybe, instead of a boozy day, a long week at a beachhouse with more chance to ruminate, to flesh out topics, to twist the glass and look from a different angle. I can't help feeling it's just a little too blurry, too rushed. At times, even through compelled to go on, I felt exhausted. Interspersed content with some chronology and dates, some sense of context, would have enriched the book, it felt to me, just as would have perspectives from others around the time. But for the memoir that it is, I feel grateful.
February 6, 2017
A great collection of stories and anecdotes from Vera’s life. Some of them are dark and disturbing, some are hilarious, all are very frank. I really enjoyed her reflections on Australia and her blunt observations about things. An enjoyable, quick read.
October 23, 2024
The first few pages were delightful but I lost interest quickly.
Poorly structured all over the place strung together anecdotes about a no doubt interesting life. Maybe the tone came across as a little self congratulatory. dnf
Poorly structured all over the place strung together anecdotes about a no doubt interesting life. Maybe the tone came across as a little self congratulatory. dnf
March 4, 2022
I read this wild and easy going woman who is an author and a Holocaust survivor, the other day. Her memoirs book called “Vera” by Vera Wasowski with Robert Hilman. He was interviewing a 80 year old Vera. I enjoy her book, what a miracle, wild , funny, and sad life she has led. The writing is a bit complicated for me, maybe not for others? You decide? She is a famous journalist. Her story is one of an child surviving hell. She grew up in Lwow, Poland and when she was 7 years old, she was only an child, the Nazis invaded her hometown and was forced to live in the ghetto. She watched her father took his life and her mother was sexual blackmail with her uncle in exchange for survival. After the war, she, her husband Jan and son migrated to Australia, Melbourne.
September 18, 2015
"Living well is the best revenge". It's inconceivable reading this autobiography to consider it simply might not have happened. Instead of a wonderful story Vera's life could have been a statistic, a brief historical reference. I've never before finished reading a book only to, as I did with Vera: My Story, immediately begin reading again, wanting to reread Vera's perspicacious observations with reassurance and joy that 5 year old Vera who greets us at the start of the book is still with us, fulfils and celebrates the potential she so dearly holds onto.
September 10, 2015
A beautifully written account of an extraordinary life.
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February 28, 2019Great read and amazing life story.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews