Hell's Traces: One Murder, Two Families, Thirty-Five Holocaust Memorials

by Victor Ripp, David Colacci (Reading)

"With this act of memory and imagination, Mr. Ripp transforms his cousin from a ghostly memory to a vivid presence whose loss he―and his readers―can more fully grasp." ―Diane Cole, Wall Street Journal In July 1942, the French police in Paris, acting for the German military government, arrested Victor Ripp’s three-year-old cousin, Alexandre. Two months later, the boy was killed in Auschwitz. In Hell’s Traces , Ripp examines this act through the prism of family history. In addition to Alexandre, ten members of Ripp’s family on his father’s side died in the Holocaust. His mother’s side of the family, numbering thirty people, was in Berlin when Hitler came to power. Without exception they escaped the Final Solution. Hell’s Traces tells the story of the two families’ divergent paths. To spark the past to life, he embarks on a journey to visit Holocaust memorials throughout Europe. “Could a stone pillar or a bronze plaque or whatever else constitutes a memorial,” he asks, “cause events that took place more than seven decades ago to appear vivid?” A memorial in Warsaw that includes a boxcar like the ones that carried Jews to Auschwitz compels Ripp to contemplate the horror of Alexandre’s transport to his death. One in Berlin that invokes the anti-Jewish laws of the 1930s allows him to better understand how his mother’s family escaped the Nazis. In Paris he stumbles across a playground dedicated to the memory of the French children who were deported, Alexandre among them. Ultimately, Ripp sees thirty-five memorials in six countries. He encounters the artists who designed the memorials, historians who recall the events that are memorialized, and survivors with their own stories to tell. Resolutely unsentimental, Hell’s Traces is structured like a travelogue in which each destination enables a reckoning with the past.

Genres: Holocaust, Nonfiction, History, Memoir, Family, European History, World War II

224 pages, Hardcover

Published March 21, 2017

Reviews

[Lissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Victor Ripp is a descendant of two worlds: the first, a family of well-to-do Jewish entrepreneurs who emigrated from Europe before it was too late to do so during the Nazi occupation; the second, a family of not-so-well-to-do Jewish laborers who stayed behind in France and Poland. Everyone down to the last person in the first family survived the Holocaust/Shoah; the second family was not so fortunate, and Ripp lost several members of his family. The main "character" in this book is Alexandre Ripp, Victor's cousin, who was part of that second family and who was gassed in Auschwitz at the age of three. Victor sets out to retrace what happened to Alexandre and the rest of his relatives, all the while visiting different Shoah memorials and reflecting on their meanings.

I think one of the most interesting things about this book to me is that Alexandre was deported from France. There seems to be a misconception out there that the Jews of France were mostly safe, which simply wasn't true. Foreign-born Jews, especially, were in danger of being rounded up by the Nazis, and were on multiple on occasions. My own great-grandmother and great-uncle David were deported from France and were murdered in Auschwitz (I always get surprised looks when I tell people this, as if Germany and Poland were the only dangerous places to be a Jew during the Shoah), so I felt an instant connection to the author and Alexandre. I can't even begin to imagine how frightened Alexandre must have been, especially since he was separated from his family and held in an internment center for months before being murdered in Auschwitz.

The author isn't afraid to explore what the privilege of Kahans (the first family, his mother's side) helped them to do (namely, escape), and what the lack of said privilege spelled out for the Ripps.

I also enjoyed the author's reflection on the thirty-five Shoah memorials he visited - how he felt, how politics and feelings shaped them, how people see them now. I do wish that photographs of the memorials had been included with the book, because I found myself googling each new one to see exactly what he was talking about. Some of the memorials do little to memorialize Jews; those in countries that were part of the former Soviet bloc, especially, tend to lump all those who were killed as victims of an ideological war between communist Russia and fascist Germany.

The author tends to come across as somewhat dry and unemotional. This isn't a critique of his feelings (he also discusses how different people and different generations react to the Shoah), but it made for some uninspired reading at times, which is a shame, because the material was interesting. I'm one of those 3G survivors who get quite emotional about it, more emotional than my grandmother most of the time, even though she lost everyone in her family (and, consequently, I have never known the relatives I lost except through a few scattered pictures and letters - I mourn, I suppose, the emptiness that I feel on that side of the family, the great gaping hole that cannot be filled because my grandmother was a little girl when she was sent away to England and remembers so little about them).

This book, in a way, reminds me of Daniel Mendelsohn's "The Lost: A Search for Six in Six Million," although Mendelsohn's writing style is much more emotional, and there is a bit of a mystery that is "solved" in that book. But they are two books about Jews whose ancestors made it to America and who lost relatives in the Shoah who had stayed behind in Europe. Both are quite interesting, but I'd recommend Mendelsohn's more highly.

[Chava · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a lot of Holocaust books, and this one really stood out. Victor Ripp writes about how part of his family was murdered and part of his family escaped. He visits Holocaust memorials and asks about their ability to honor individuals or to embody the scope of the Holocaust. Elaine Margolin's review in The Jerusalem Post was rather long and her criticism was that Ripp was out of touch with his deepest self and idolized the affluent relatives who escaped just in time, mostly because of their ability to "pay their way" out.

While his family history is an important part of the book, I thought the questions he raised about Holocaust memorials are important to think about. How does a big modern installation of cubes in Berlin invoke the memories of those who suffered? Is Auschwitz a memorial to those who died there, or more of a chronicle of Nazi inhumanity? Can a plaque make the murder of his then three-year-old cousin more vivid? What will people think in the future when they see a memorial in Russia or Austria that paints the non-Jewish citizens as heroes, martyrs and victims of Nazi aggression, when history shows that for the most part, that was not the reality?

As far as Ripp visiting these places and connecting with his Jewish self, he is not alone in how he responds to the Holocaust. Friends whose parents survived the Holocaust have expressed a range of emotions about how to remember the dead, and more importantly, how to live your life with that knowledge. The value of this book is that it provokes thought about everything Ripp discusses: family, memory, memorials.

[Valerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir was odd. Victor Ripp was trying through visits to various Holocaust memorials to see if he could understand why and how his father’s side of the family suffered more during the Holocaust than his mother’s (who escaped the Holocaust). I don’t feel like he succeeded in his quest. There were too many variables as to whether one survived or died. And the variations of each memorial he visited showed that. Some memorials seemed superficial. Other memorials were overly ambiguous. He seemed unhappy wherever he visited. I feel like he is still suffering from guilt because he and his family were able to survive whereas his cousin and other family members did not. And he will never feel any satisfaction because the members he needs to talk to the most perished at Auschwitz. Some things are not explanatory unless you talk to the victim itself and of course that wasn’t possible for Ripp here. The structure of the book is odd. He goes from one memorial to another while exploring his family’s history in between. And he seems so unhappy that his mothers side of the family survived, like they did something wrong. It is not an easy read. In fact the tone can come across as grouchy and pompous. I think the professor in him, trying to find meanings in things that may not have a meaning, is why the book reads like this at times. His family history is interesting and unusual. The explorations of the various memorials are sometimes tedious. I gave this three stars because there were parts I did enjoy (the family backgrounds) but I didn’t love this one. It. It’s one of the more unusual memoirs that I have read.

[Sarah Gatewood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished this book the other day. I actually hadn't had this on my to read list. This book was new to one of our libraries and was on a featured shelf. Victor's immediate family left during the war. They survived. His Aunt and young cousin, Alexandre did not leave and did in fact die during the war. His Uncle lived because he was in hiding. Although other family members were deported or in hiding, those three relatives were the most mentioned because of the closeness of Victor's family to them. Victor explores the history of his Mother and Father's sides of the family to discover how some lived and some were deported. Victor visits 35 Holocaust memorials trying to get some clarity and to see how victims are remembered. I found this book to be a moving tribute to his young cousin, Alexandre, just 3 years old. I did find the way he wrote the story of discovering his family's history interspersed with touring the memorials a bit confusing. Victor did an amazing job of discovering both sides of his family's history. The last memorial Alexandre along with 14 other young children are remembered. It was a moving experience even just reading about it. I was disappointed at the lack of photos though - there are zero! Very recommended read.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the author’s musings about the nature of memorials probably wouldn’t have held me for 200 pages, his family’s story is genuinely interesting. Ripp and his brother escaped with their parents just in time, but he is keenly aware that the fate of his similarly aged, look-alike cousin - dead at Auschwitz, aged 3 - could so easily have been his own. His understandable need to come to terms with this drives the narrative. Well worth reading.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting perspective, but hard to read at times. It definitely makes me look at memorials in a new way.

[Pam G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to follow a family's history through the Holocaust. Hard to read at times but a must read to make sure we never forget.

[Ava Biffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wrenching because it's matter of fact, not despite this.

[Doris · Rating 5 out of 5]

First I will note that although the description lists this with 224 pages, there are only 200 pages of text. There are also bibliographical entries, author's and etc which make up the missing pages.

[Sharyn Berg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is it proper to say that I enjoyed a book about the Holocaust? Questions like this, and others, from the author made me take a deeper look at things. This was not just another book for me, but more of an experience. I used the Internet to look up and see pictures of every memorial that the author visited and formed my own opinions before reading the authors. Sometimes we agreed, sometimes not, but it was always a deep, thought-provoking, educational experience. I recommend this book to all Who are interested in understanding more of World War II.

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reminds me of what other good Holocaust memoirs can emphasize, which is that the Holocaust is not part of the past and is still happening in a sense. The parts about the memorials were fascinating. The family stories were also very well-written and so interesting. The final chapter and the conclusion that the author comes to regarding him and his cousin is so emotional and important. I would recommend this to anyone who likes to read Holocaust memoirs and books about family members researching their Holocaust history.

[Nissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly difficult subject matter, but thought-provoking and well-written. I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I would highly recommend if you are interested in holocaust literature.

[Lisa Matheny]

I wasn't sure I would even finish this book. But the author drew me into his memories and self reflection. I kept coming back to it, eager to read more. Most excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It made me think and at the end, I mourned for little Alexandre.