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Shared Sorrows: A Gypsy Family Remembers the Holocaust
On the morning after Kristallnacht, Toby Sonneman's father walked through broken glass to apply for the visa that saved him from the fate of so many during the Third Reich. In examining her own family history, the author discovered the similarities between the fate of the Jews and the Gypsies in the Holocaust, both peoples selected on racial grounds for extermination by the Nazis.
She traveled with an American Gypsy survivor to Munich, where she stayed with the formidable Rosa Mettbach. This is the story of Rosa and other members of an extended family who survived the Holocaust. Shared Sorrows tells the story of a Gypsy family against the backdrop of a Jewish one, detailing and examining their shared sufferings under the Nazis.
My father brought a spool of thread with him from Germany when he came to America in 1939. And another spool of thread, one in my imagination, unwinds slowly and unpredictably, sometimes fraying or tangling. It's a thin and delicate thread that leads me to the Gypsies, to the family that I meet in Germany, the country of so many tangled memories and emotions. And as I talk to them and I listen, following the threads of their stories backwards in time to the 1930s and 40s and before, their memories start to become mine as well.
She traveled with an American Gypsy survivor to Munich, where she stayed with the formidable Rosa Mettbach. This is the story of Rosa and other members of an extended family who survived the Holocaust. Shared Sorrows tells the story of a Gypsy family against the backdrop of a Jewish one, detailing and examining their shared sufferings under the Nazis.
My father brought a spool of thread with him from Germany when he came to America in 1939. And another spool of thread, one in my imagination, unwinds slowly and unpredictably, sometimes fraying or tangling. It's a thin and delicate thread that leads me to the Gypsies, to the family that I meet in Germany, the country of so many tangled memories and emotions. And as I talk to them and I listen, following the threads of their stories backwards in time to the 1930s and 40s and before, their memories start to become mine as well.
296 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 24, 2008
There are not a lot of books out there that deal with the Holocaust from the viewpoint of the Gypsies (Sinti & Roma) and even less that offer first hand stories from survivors.
This book is perfect on so many different levels. The author is an outsider not only to the survivors she befriends but also to the Sinti society on the whole. But the mutual affection between her and the Mettbach/Hollenreiner family is evident as she records the memories that some of them rarely share. It is a glimpse into a society that is not understood by the outside world. It is a walk through history, peppered with knowledge and research. Instead of it being an emotionless lecture on what happened, she gives the events a humanity and complexity. The Sinti were/are victims of prejudice but they have their own prejudice. The author struggles at how to view the Germans she comes across, were they all quietly complicant or did some stand up and help the helpless.
This book is perfect on so many different levels. The author is an outsider not only to the survivors she befriends but also to the Sinti society on the whole. But the mutual affection between her and the Mettbach/Hollenreiner family is evident as she records the memories that some of them rarely share. It is a glimpse into a society that is not understood by the outside world. It is a walk through history, peppered with knowledge and research. Instead of it being an emotionless lecture on what happened, she gives the events a humanity and complexity. The Sinti were/are victims of prejudice but they have their own prejudice. The author struggles at how to view the Germans she comes across, were they all quietly complicant or did some stand up and help the helpless.
July 5, 2018
I expected an informative read when I purchased this book. I received much more than I bargained for. Sonneman's collaboration with Rosa Mettbach not only highlights the little known Great Devouring of the Gypsies under the Nazis, it also delves deeply into the burdens of bitterness, the betrayal of humanity, and the need for forgiveness. Studded throughout with exemplary scholarship, it retains its personal touch and avoids falling into dry academic "objectivity."
Beautifully written, deeply personal, comprehensive, and unflinching in its description of the horrors of the Holocaust, it is a must read for those who want to learn about the Gypsy experience under the Nazi's from the recollections of those who survived it.
Beautifully written, deeply personal, comprehensive, and unflinching in its description of the horrors of the Holocaust, it is a must read for those who want to learn about the Gypsy experience under the Nazi's from the recollections of those who survived it.
December 24, 2019
Moving, personal, detailed. Clearly well researched but very readable for a lay person. I will definitely make my children read this when we study the Holocaust.
May 14, 2013
The book plays during World War 2 and it is about a gypsy family that lived in Germany and other gypsy people. The narrator of the book is reporter/journalist and asks a couple gypsy people that lived during WWII what they had to go through. She wanted to bring up gypsy stories and not just stories from the Jewish families. It is not just about one family or person but various people. The book has really sad stories about the holocaust and how the families had to flee from one country to another so they wouldn’t get caught and sent to a concentration camp by the Nazis.
Shared Sorrows was not made into a movie.
I would not recommend this book to younger people because it has some brutal stuff in it. But it is a good book to read, especially for teenagers and adults.
What I didn’t like about the book was that half of the book is about the journalist traveling or thinking about random stuff like how the neighbourhood looks like. So you hear their stories but it comes in little parts. I think it would have been a lot better if it would just be the stories and not about the journalist.
Shared Sorrows was not made into a movie.
I would not recommend this book to younger people because it has some brutal stuff in it. But it is a good book to read, especially for teenagers and adults.
What I didn’t like about the book was that half of the book is about the journalist traveling or thinking about random stuff like how the neighbourhood looks like. So you hear their stories but it comes in little parts. I think it would have been a lot better if it would just be the stories and not about the journalist.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews