קאטרינה

by Aharon Appelfeld, אהרון אפלפלד

קאטרינה ספרו החמישה-עשר של אהרן אפלפלד, חתן פרס ישראל לספרות, הוא סיפור-וידוי מזעזע ומעורר מחשבה. גויה שיכורה ורוצחת מגוללת את סיפור חייה מעמדה מרוחקת ושלווה. סיפור של אישה פשוטה, בת-איכרים, הקושרת את גורלה בגורל העם היהודי, "העם הנבחר".
קאטרינה סיפורו של העם היהודי מזווית ראייה חדשה ומוזרה. הגיבורה - קורבן ותליין בדמות אחת - מתארת את עברה כשהיא משוכנעת בכל-לבה "שאין יותר יהודים בעולם".

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Jewish, Israel, Ukraine, Historical, Literature

174 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

AHARON APPELFELD is the author of more than forty works of fiction and nonfiction, including Until the Dawn's Light and The Iron Tracks (both winners of the National Jewish Book Award) and The Story of a Life (winner of the Prix Médicis Étranger). Other honors he has received include the Giovanni Bocaccio Literary Prize, the Nelly Sachs Prize, the Israel Prize, the Bialik Prize, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and the MLA Commonwealth Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received honorary degrees from the Jewish Theological Seminary, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and Yeshiva University.

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aharon Appelfeld’s novel’s based on recollections of Ukrainian women who looked after him in early childhood, before he was dispatched to a concentration camp aged nine. A year later, after he escaped, it was women like these who helped him survive. Narrated by Katerina who’s in her eighties, it opens in Ukraine in the late 1940s. Released from prison after forty years, Katerina lives alone in a small village, in a dilapidated hut that once belonged to her father. She spends her time reflecting on her past. Katerina grew up in the late 19th century, conditions were harsh, poverty was widespread but everyone around her was united in their hatred of local Jewish communities. Jewish merchants were useful for goods they brought to the village but even more attractive as scapegoats and prey: regularly subjected to outbursts of devastating violence, slaughtered during brutal pogroms. But looking for work brought Katerina into direct contact with the Jews, living in their homes, caring for their children. She gradually learnt their customs and language. Katerina’s attachment to Jewish culture unexpectedly shaped her life. Now Jewish people seem to have vanished from her world, transported on the trains Katerina heard from her prison cell. So, Katerina vows to keep them alive through her memories. Katerina’s an arresting figure, although she sometimes reads more as a vehicle for Appelfeld’s recreation of the lost histories of his family and families like them. Appelfeld’s prose style often felt awkward and forced, ultimately making this more convincing as a portrait of a time, a place and a culture than it was as a story.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Penguin Modern Classics for an ARC

[Anka · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had heard of Aharon Appelfeld long before reading this book and had always been curious about his writing. I had also seen an interview with him a while back and judging from all I knew about the author and theme, what I hoped to find in this book was enlightenment. Not of the spiritual kind, but of the pragmatic one. I've always wanted to understand why the Jews were the colossal victims of WW2 and what led to all the hatred towards them.

I am not Jewish and I don't have any close acquaintances who are, so the subject has always eluded me and I was always stuck with the question "why?". Aside from the abomination and the genocide, I just couldn't grasp the reasons behind such a widespread dislike of the Jewish people.

Now, after reading the book, I do feel illuminated in some ways. I still don't have the exact answer to my question but I did find out just how long before the war the actual harassment of the Jews started. At least in South-Eastern Europe, which is where I am from, so the geographical area was of particular interest to me.

Another aspect that the book goes in depth of consists in the grueling living conditions in the Moldova/Bessarabia/Bukovina area at the beginning of the past century. This was at the time and continued to be for a long time a very poor, tormented and torn area. Although I live in a neighbouring country (some of that particular territory was ripped from us by the Russians etc), I am not even sure where the geographical area in the book belongs nowadays. I think it's in Ukraine but I can't be too sure. The novel details this aspect very well as it translated to its horribly accurate depiction of the relationships between the inhabitants, the discrepancy between the rural and urban population and, of course, the deep, agonising, barbaric, ancient hatred of Jews. In my opinion, it seems that the population in that particular area blamed the Jews for all their problems and for the chaos which reigned there.

The poverty depicted is striking. It dehumanizes almost everyone but the Jews who seemingly try to continue leading their normal lives despite a very abnormal environment and for this they must be punished.

Another aspect that is as true as it is dramatic lies in the widespread habit of heavy drinking among the non-Jewish population. This, of course, contributes to violent crimes. To this day, the Russian/Moldovan population regards drinking hard liquors (vodka) as something normal and suitable for all. I know this from first-hand experience.

I don't know how well this book can be understood by those who are outsiders to the region or to the Holocaust.

In the end, this is hatred in its purest form, one which cannot be explained because it defies reason. I also think it says a lot about humanity and its animal nature.

[Simona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Katerina liks mano knygų lentynoj. O tai jau iškart nemažai pasako apie knygą. Labai artima ir suprantama pasirodė. 💛

Visų pirma patraukė meilė kaimui, gamtai, tie šviesūs nostalgiški kaimo atsiminimai. Jau vien tai, greičiausiai, būtų mane papirkę.

Bet ji ir daug daugiau gylio slepia savy. Skaitydama galvojau, kad tiktų Vargdienių knygai, kaip istorijos dalis. Ne Prancūzija, aišku, bet pasakojimas apie pažemintus, likimo skriaudžiamus, sunkiom salygom gyvenančius ir kažkokiu būdu sugebančius savyje išlaikyti bent šiek tiek šviesos ir vilties.

Patiko ir tai, kad knygoje žydų istorija pasakojama tarsi iš šalies, tarsi antram plane, bet ji tokia stipri ir sunki, ir draskanti širdį!

Labai gražiai perteiktas ir senos moters, jau, rodos, nurimusios, susitaikiusios, pasakojimas. Kai įvykiai jau nebe taip skaudina, kai viskas jau išgyventa, kai pati esi rami savyje. Ir dėl to pasakojimas man įgavo svorio ir gylio. Kai atstumas ir laikas išryškina tai, kas svarbiausia. Skaičiau kaip kokią savo močiutės ar babos pasakojamą istoriją, gal dar todėl atrodė artima.

Išsinešu ir labai įdomią bendram kontekste mintį apie kalbos vartojimą, kurios pasirinkimą lemia aplinkybės ir tuo metu vyraujantys jausmai. Katerina kalbas kaitalioja priklausomai nuo situacijų, žmonių, vietų, jausmų. Ir daug reikšmės tai kalbai suteikia. 💛

O dar cikliškumas! Gamtos ir gyvenimo. Ir pati knyga baigiasi ciklu. Kuris, rodos tęsis ir toliau. Katerinos viso gyvenimo atsiminimai ritasi kaip bangos. Kaip užstrigus plokštelė. Ir kai jau visas gyvenimas papasakotas, telieka vėl pradėti iš pradžių. Medituoti gyvenimą. Ir jau nebeaišku, į kurį pasakojimo kartą pataikiau skaitydama. Nors versk knygą iš pradžių ir vėl pakartok gyvenimo ciklą. Tam, kad niekas nebūtų pamiršta, tam, kad viskas įsirėžtų giliai.

Skaitydama neįsivaizdavau, kad taip palies. Bet tikrai puiki pasirodė, vis apie ją galvoju.

[Mikey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fairly simple read in the way it is written as well as being short (only 200+ pages which are small). The story is based on the life of a young woman in the late 1800's and early 1900's up through the holocaust. It is hard to recommend this book because it is one hardship (horrible ones) after another her entire life other than a few years here and there while helping Jewish families that she becomes extremely close with, all the while her past haunts her. About 2/3 through the most horrible thing ever happens to her which I will not divulge herein, but I screamed out loud and threw the book down unable to read it any longer. I have now picked it up again and will finish it in a day or so. UPDATE: Book finished and I would leave my initial review as is. I can recommend it to anyone who is interested in this type of story since it was well written.

[Robert Wechsler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this short novel in memory of the author, who died last week. Although not considered one of Appelfeld’s best works, this first-person narrative by a troubled Ruthenian woman who, when young, worked in Jewish homes at the end of the 19th century, is both unique and, for the most part, very well executed and translated.

Necessarily simple and full of repetition, Katerina’s narration is both quiet and emotional, and it sometimes explodes in harrowing sequences and dialogue (there is little dialogue) as well as lyrical passages. I will have to read more of Appelfeld’s work, which I know only from before this novel was written.

[☕Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ratings:

Writing 5
Story line 4
Characters 4
Emotional impact 4

Overall rating: 4.25

[Rommel Manosalvas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Qué lastima que a los muertos no se les permita hablar. Tienen algo que decir, estoy segura de ello.

[KD · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m Katherine, so anything eponymous calls my name (ha!). Why did I love ‘Katerina’ so much? I enjoyed ‘Suddenly, Love’ by Aharan Appelfeld, which I read last Summer in lockdown, very much.

Why did I love this book so much when really, it’s about my worst nightmare - being born a poor peasant woman in ~1860s Austrian empire*, illiterate, raped, homeless, unloved, and eventually, imprisoned and losing children? (this is all in the synopsis on the back of the book).

This form of short, translated novel which is a story of woe and misery illuminated with dots of hope deemed never to be fulfilled I found reminiscent of one of my favourite authors, Patrick Suskind (‘Perfume’ and ‘The Pigeon’.)

The atmosphere - the roughness of the barns and taverns, the markets, the bitterness of the Czernowitz Winter, the intensely religious mores of the time - feels so real. I was so shocked to find the book was written in around 1980; I thought it was much more of a period piece.

*Note: Above, I refer to “Austrian empire”, our heroine, Katerina, lived in what is now modern-day Ukraine. She’s a village girl, a “Ruthenian”, which is a term which interested me very much. In a pre-global era, of course national identity came second place to local identity, and Ruthenians were Slavic people from Eastern Europe. The area had a strong German influence at the time. There are plenty of politics around this, and borders have changed so much over the centuries. What is more important, it seems, is Katerina’s identity as a village girl. Being born a village girl, she is destined to always remain tied to the village, and limited in how far she can get in life, both metaphorically and physically. Though she indeed tries to escape from the village in her mind or in running to the mountains (in the hopeful chapters in the first third of the book, with the boys); she is forever plagued by nightmares and dreams of the village; she is tracked down, or bumps into fellow villagers who remember her and her family. When she tries to pass inconspicuously through the larger towns and cities she visits as she matures, she is unmistakably a “village girl” to all who encounter her. It defines her.

Page 22 - “Anyone who was born in a village knows that life is no party.”

So many quotes, but this one burned my eyes.

I think this novel would work very, very well as a film. Katerina would be a wonderful people’s heroine. I love stories of normal people, not royals. Her story is in many ways the story of all people, and women in particular, throughout history - survival against the elements, against others, despite ineffable vulnerability. I was rooting for her. She learns to read. This plot point is one that I have a real weakness for - there were too many wonderful moments to quote all in this review, but the point where an uneducated character learns to read and a whole new world is open to them will always get me. When they will do anything to get their hands on parchment, quill, candle and books…I love it.

To me, this is a proper novel. Character and plot is so strong. I couldn’t believe how well the author could inhabit the mind of Katerina. A critic writes on the front of my copy that “..[he] works a kind of magic”, and I’d agree. I stayed up late reading this. The book streams along, driven by external and internal pushes on and from within Katerina. The characterisation / voice is so strong that it’s the kind of book where you can be interrupted and immediately resume your reading, immersed in the world.

I just love Appelfeld’s style of writing so much. I’m wondering if rather than losing, there’s something added in translation. It’s hard to put my finger on but it’s something I’ve noticed across many translated books that I’ve enjoyed. It’s the extra hours that the translator spends to get to the ore of the meaning of the author’s original words, and putting them into English. Sadlly, I’ll never speak Hebrew to be able to comment if it is this or the original. I quite like having that question open, anyway.

Finally, of course this book is about the continual horror of the holocaust, and the pogroms and anti semitism that preceded (and followed it). It’s devastating but all too familiar to read about the way that small-minded villagers are not just innocently simple and stuck in their ways, but highly bigoted. It is not just words, though - upon festival days, and when alcohol is involved, their violence intensifies. Does this sound familiar, in 2021?

I think the author does a great job of demonstrating the particular pervasiveness of antisemitism, its specific nature as a form of bigotry which seems to exist across cultures and times. It was devastating to read.

I mentioned this book is about women, about class, about ethnicity - it’s clear to the reader the many injustices Katerina suffers living at the intersection of being a poor woman; and through her adjacency to Jews. This then brings us to her injustice prison sentence - again, nothing changes, but nothing changes.

I hope to read this book again, I wanted to as soon as I’d finished. There is a lot more I could say about this but I’ll stop here. It will stay with me for a long time. Very rich, very good.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Given the material AA had to work with, this is impressively dull. What Joseph Roth could have done with it!

[Chantal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Llegué a este libro por casualidad tras verlo recomendado en la biblioteca y, aunque por el argumento que tenía en la solapa me esperaba otra cosa, me ha gustado. Es una lectura corta pero profunda, emotiva, y te da el punto de vista de los judíos en Ucrania mediante los ojos de una ama de casa cristiana. Está bastante interesante.

[Lada Moskalets · Rating 4 out of 5]

Дуже похмуро, скидає читача до прірви відчаю, такої глибокої, що аж дивно, що після прочитання залишається медитативно-спокійний настрій. Євреї очима української дівчини постають як інші і вищі істоти, не від світу цього, хоча їхній світ її не приймає до кінця.

[Solomiya Antonyshyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Прекрасна книжка, що читається на одному подиху. Я настільки співпереживала Катерині, наче зрослася з нею воєдине під час читання, відчувала її самотність, її біль, її духовну силу.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pretty tough, gruelling read. Life here is brutal and poverty stricken - and although by far the worst violence is inflicted on the Jewish communities, it is ever present amongst the Catholic villagers as well. There are glimpses of joy - mainly in Katerina’s years working in two very different Jewish households, but even as she finds a sense of stability and contentment that she cannot get from her ‘own’ people these episodes are bookended by tragedy. The sense of complete separation, fear and mistrust between the Jewish and Christian communities and the regularity with which the virulent anti-semitism explodes into murder and pogroms is devastating. The effects on Katerina’s life are also catastrophic.

I’m probably grasping at straws but looking back now maybe despite all appearances there is something hopeful in the character of Katerina. Maybe by bridging the gap between the two communities she stands for what can be achieved if people make an effort to understand each other, especially as it is she that is left to commemorate and perpetuate Jewish traditions at the end even whilst remaining Catholic. It’s equally possible that I’m being naive or overly simplistic but if can I prise some light from all of the tragedy here then I’ll take it.

[Neringa Moz · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️3,5

[Taras · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a deeply emotional book. I feel stranger to have grown up in a Jewish area devoid of Jews- without any info of how they perished...This book covers the dreadful society that existed prior to the Holocaust. I appreciated the dread..Was helpful to understand what was possibly going through people's heads.

The Jewish and Slavic stereotypes run heavy in this book. Jews are educated and weak Slavs are strong and stupid. A little more nuance would've been nice...

However this reminds of Garfinkle's jewcentricity book. It's hard to read this book and not feel like an intruding outsider. Inferior Katerina's obsession with all things Jewish is odd.
This is also a modern novel with graphic (for me) sex and violence. Not sure if that made book better, but I think I prefer less in-your-face imagery.

Wonderful book, need more like it, maybe with slightly less modern writing. Would've been helpful to have some notes on real stories that inspired the book.

[Beverly · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story wasn't quite what I was expecting. The dust cover referred to a 'succession' of Jewish households so I kept waiting for another household after the second. It seemed that Katerina had no goal or direction for her life. Her dreams made me wonder if she struggled with a mental illness.

I was shocked at the hatred towards Jewish people. Did Christians really refer to them as 'children of Satan'. The prisoners were cheering that Jews were headed to death camps. And quotes from characters, "... death to the Jews," "... That's their fate. That's God's will," "The Jews have destroyed her soul, and she can never be redeemed." It boggles my mind that any Christian would view a Jew in that way. If this is truly how Christians felt then it helps explain how Hitler may not have had a lot of resistance (not that I know whether he did or didn't have resistance).

[Joey Gold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gritty and violent yet never sentimentally or unnecessarily so, "Katerina" should be read by anyone looking for an authentic piece of Holocaust literature, or, really, just very good literature. "Adam Resurrected" is also very powerful.

[Micebyliz]

I've read several Appelfeld books. They're engrossing and profound. Always something to think about.

[Victoria Lisek · Rating 4 out of 5]

A relatively short and simple novel about a Ukrainian girl discovering Jews and Judaism in the 1880s. I loved it.

[Evelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

One often hears of “the banality of evil”. This is a novel that seeks to explore that concept through the life of the title character, Katerina, and the disconnect between antisemitism and the individual Jews that people encountered in their daily lives who were viewed as decent people.

Katerina grows up in a poor peasant home in Ukraine with an abusive father and a cold unloving mother. She is fascinated by Jewish peddlers and their wares, which she can’t afford to buy. Yet she is also repelled by them having been taught the common antisemitic tropes and beliefs in the Church and the community, the most pervasive of which is that the Jews killed Christ, and deserved to be punished and die for that reason.

As a teenager she leaves home after the death of her mother, and her father’s remarriage to a cruel stepmother. She goes to live among the homeless and poor in the railroad station in a nearby city. Work is scarce and drinking is prevalent as an escape from the cold and hunger. There she is offered employment by a Jewish woman. Despite her hatred of Jews she accepts, and works as a housemaid. She comes to love and respect the family members. In turn they teach her to read and write, and provide her with employment despite her out-of-wedlock pregnancy, which results in abandonment of the baby at a nunnery.

Nevertheless, during visits to a local bar and during pogroms, she does nothing to protect or save her employers from the mobs aside from taking the two young boys in her care to hide in the countryside and keeping them safe until an aunt finds them and takes them into her custody. Katerina remains silent through it all. She is complacent accepting money and shelter from Jews and viewing individual Jews with whom she lives and for whom she works as good people, but complicit in the daily ongoing casual and overt antisemitism.

Nevertheless, she comes to admire the Jews and adopt some of their ways. She even lives with a Jewish man and bears his child despite his admonitions not to do so. The outcome is tragic as he rejects her, and she seeks to raise their son as a single mother with some sense of his Jewish heritage while living among the Jews. The son is murdered by an enraged drunken peasant, and she in turn kills the murderer.

Katerina spends 40 years in prison isolated from much of what is happening in the outside world aside from insults about her love of Jews, and news from fellow inmates that the world is being rid of Jews. As the end of World War II approaches the prison gates open and she returns home to a world without Jews where she is feared and ostracized as a murderess. Her casual antisemitism remains in evidence as she seeks to record and preserve a bowdlerized version of Judaism.

In many ways this is a chilling, heartbreaking and gut wrenching story as it seeks to convey the realities of antisemitism, and the contradictions and disconnects between it and everyday encounters and opinions of Jews through the life of one Ukrainian woman during the early part of the twentieth century.

[Dmytro Shyian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Спогади про Катастрофу живуть ніби у глибокому підвалі, куди кожен спускається наодинці. Цей вислів автора книги Агарона Аппельфельда влучно накладається й на мої відчуття, хоча я, на щастя, не зазнав і сотої долі того лиха, що довелося спіткати йому. Так ще хлопчиком він пережив насильницьку смерть матері, чернівецьке гетто та депортацію до одного з румунських концтаборів у Трансністрії, звідки йому вдалося втекти. Потім були довгі роки переховувань і поневірянь Україною, аж доки доля зрештою не привела його до Ізраїлю. Там він згодом став письменником, у творах якого нашій землі відведена не остання роль. Роман «Катерина» став моїм першим знайомством зі спадком Аппельфельда, і як людина, що не перший день досліджує Катастрофу, мушу зазначити, що цей текст може приголомшити навіть підготованого читача. Перевага історичних досліджень в тому, що вони зберігають певну дистанцію та необхідну виваженість наукової мови. Натомість гарний художній твір б’є просто в серце, як і має бути у випадку із гарним художнім твором. Мабуть, більше за все у ньому вражає звичність та навіть буденність антисемітизму, який був властивий тодішньому українському селу. Солідна наукова думка про те, що людоненависницькі ідеї німецьких націонал-соціалістів впали у підготований століттями ґрунт, тут знаходить свій художній вимір. Наприклад, одною з «гарних» великодніх традицій буковинських селян було ходити на влови: «Кожного взятого в полон єврея одноплемінці приходили визволяти. Якщо тобі попався єврей, то можеш розраховувати на добрий викуп - валізу всілякого добра.» Однак викраданням людей справа не обмежується. У цьому селянам втирає ніс уже міська наволоч, яка має традицію вбивати єврея на свято Песах: «Так багато Пахощів у свята Песах... Але для мене весняне буяння обернулося кольором жалоби. Другого дня Песаху мого ґазду вбили просто на вулиці. Душогуб ударив його ножем у самісіньке серце. Кожного року на Песах убивають єврея - одного або й двох.».
Всі ці убивства і погроми відбуваються задовго до появи тут німецьких і румунських військ та «початку остаточного вирішення єврейського питання». Між тим, ненависть уже розлита в повітрі: «"Жиди лихі, жиди паскудні, їх треба виривати з корінням!" - чула я на кожному кроці.» Залишилось тільки піднести сірника.
Наостанок скажу, що книгу Аппельфельда було б корисно прочитати кожному сучасному, вільно мислячому українцю, навіть якщо це часом і буде неприємно. Кожному з нас необхідно спуститися у цей глибокий підвал, бо тільки через нього лежить шлях до переосмислення власного минулого, шлях від інфантилізму до зрілості, а значить і шлях до свободи.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unusual, original and deeply unsettling, this short novel by Aharon Appelfeld is quite remarkable in its power and ability to disturb. When we first meet her, Katerina, the eponymous protagonist, is living in a hut on her deceased family’s farm in the Ukraine, just after WWII. She has recently been released from prison, but it is only later that we discover what her crime was. As she looks out of the window, she reflects back over her 80 years, starting from her childhood in an abusive Ruthenian family in the 1880s and her escape from them. She finds refuge, work and solace in a family of Jews, which begins a complex and complicated relationship with Judaism. Traditionally the Ruthenians have been fiercely anti-Semitic, but as Katerina gets to know the Jewish community she finds herself more and more attracted to their values and way of life. Having always felt an outsider in her own community she seems to find acceptance and a sense of belonging amongst Jews as she gradually overcomes her own fears and prejudices. She never converts, however, and clings to her own Catholic religion to the end, but her sympathies lie always with the Jews, and she is devastated to discover when she is finally released from prison that the Jews have all disappeared. In fact she saw the transports from the prison fields where she worked and was witness to the glee of the other Gentile prisoners at the fate awaiting the deportees in the camps. She is horrified that the prisoners are given the clothes of the Jewish community to wear as she thinks back to the kindness she had always received from the people she worked for. Narrated from her point of view and in her own voice, the book is an emotional read, as the horrors of the Holocaust are seen through the eyes of an uneducated peasant woman. Not that all the Jews she meets are saintly – the book remains nuanced and balanced – but the cheers of the prisoners as they watch the trains will continue to haunt me, and Katerina’s story will long stay with me.

[Joanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slim volume about a woman fleeing her rural home in Ukraine, finding solace and forging familial bonds, among the beleaguered Jewish families, prior to the outbreak of World War II. Katerina's love of her homeland's landscape cannot keep her there.

Bound resolutely to a landscape but only tenuously to her family, she nevertheless escapes and wanders through varied environs. Living hand-to-mouth, often in poverty, often homeless, she becomes a denizen of varied taverns and doing whatever needs doing to survive.

Offered work by a Jewish family, Katerina, is at first fearful, but comes to admire and is fascinated by Jewish life, traditions and ritual. Despite frequent pograms against Jewish communities, Katerina finds a sense of home and belonging with a series of families. She even comes to informally adopt two orphaned children of a family she worked for. Over time, she takes a Jewish lover, gives birth to two children, one of whom she abandons, and is imprisoned for the murder of the man who kills the son she is raising as Jewish.

Katerina's life unwinds over an eighty-year period and unfurls largely in flashback. For such a slim novel, 'Katerina' is often redundant. Early on, the reader 'gets' it. Yet, one after another plot point, reinforces over and over, the fact that Katerina, a Christian woman, is both documentarian and conscience of a world seen through Jewish eyes.

[Bodies in the Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is unlike anything I have read before. It’s the first Hebrew-in-translation novel I’ve read, and I’m not sure the extent to which it’s typical of Hebrew fiction from the late 20th century.

In it, the author tells the story of the 1940s pogrom from the perspective of a gentile woman who doesn’t feel at home with her own people, finds peace and familial feeling for a while working in Jewish households and then, after being sent to prison for a terrible crime (which we are left to decide for ourselves whether or not she was justified to commit), she bears a remote witness to the Holocaust. Working in the prison fields she sees trainload after trainload of Jewish people being sent to the death camps and smells the sickening smoke from the camp nearby. Prisoners are given Jewish clothes to wear.

After serving her sentence, she is amazed to return to her home village and experience life in which a significant number of the local area’s inhabitants are gone- have been exterminated.

What makes the novel so affecting is not just the awful things that happen to Katerina, but her stolid acceptance of them. There is a fatalism she embodies. And a submission to the strange period of history she is living through.

Three word review: completely different worldview.

[Martyna Bražiūnaitė · Rating 3 out of 5]

Realizmo persunkta knyga, kažkuo visgi patraukianti, kurios pagrindinė herojė - aštuoniasdešimtmetė Katerina, būdama senute, pasakoja apie savo nugyventą ilgą ir nelengvą gyvenimą. Būtent tos vietos, kuriose veikėja pasineria į savo vidų, pasirodė labiausiai vertos dėmesio - šios refleksijos kupinos skaidrumo, ramybės, savistabos. Nors laike ir erdvėje knyga gerokai atitrūkusi nuo mūsų gyvenamo meto ir realybės, joje galima rasti kažką artima.

Romane daug dėmesio skiriama antisemitizmui ir tai nestebina - autorius Aharon Appelfeld pats nukentėjo nuo nacių rankos. Romane visai neblogai išanalizuota, kaip žmonių galvose kyla prietarai, išankstiniai nusistatymai atžvilgiu to, kas jiems nepažįstama arba, kaip knygoje įtaigiai parodoma, net ir neprieinama. Ir nors joje gan vienašališkai ir stereotipiškai vaizduojamos dvi gyventojų grupės - t. y. nuolat girtuokliaujantys, tamsuoliški, ištvirkaujantys vietiniai rusėnai (Katerina kilusi iš dab. Ukrainos teritorijos) ir šviesūs, protingi, religingi, kultūrai neabejingi žydai, galima susidaryti visai neblogą XX a. pr.-vidurio Rytų Europos vaizdą.

[MonicaSo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Titolo italiano: Il mio nome è Katerina

Dopo oltre sessant’anni di assenza una contadina rutena di nome Katerina torna al villaggio natale dove, seduta davanti alla finestra della casa ormai abbandonata, ripercorre i ricordi di una vita. Cresciuta nel periodo che precede la Seconda guerra mondiale in un paese di contadini cristiani, fin da piccola le viene insegnato a temere e disprezzare gli ebrei. Quando, però, alla morte della madre – una donna dura, arrabbiata con il mondo – il padre si risposa e precipita nell’alcolismo, Katerina decide di andarsene e trova lavoro proprio presso una famiglia ebrea. L’impatto con la loro cultura è forte: è difficile per lei abituarsi a quella dedizione al lavoro, al silenzio, alle regole ferree, persino all’odore dei cibi. Il calore della casa, però, la avvolge a poco a poco finché, imparando ad amare quelle persone, lei stessa ne assimila gli usi e i rituali. Ma le violenze dei pogrom arrivano alla loro porta, lasciandola di nuovo sola. Sempre più vicina a questo popolo, al punto da far circoncidere il figlio, Katerina si allontana dai suoi compaesani, mentre le tensioni nella regione crescono... Aharon Appelfeld racconta le devastazioni della Shoah attraverso gli occhi di una gentile che vi assiste, suo malgrado, impotente. Una donna semplice ma forte, capace di affrancarsi dai pregiudizi e che a fine conflitto sceglie di farsi custode della memoria di una comunità, quella ebraica in Bucovina, che non esiste più.

Katerina è un personaggio che raccoglie in sé le caratteristiche delle tate che Aharon ha avuto vicino da bambino, una donna ucraina (se ho interpretato bene la difficile geografia di quella parte del mondo) che un po' per volta impara a conoscere gli odiati ebrei, si stupisce della loro umanità da molti negata, si lega alle donne ai bambini... non è mai una di loro ma vive con loro e assimila alcune consuetudini.
Fa paura solo ciò che non si conosce: questo penso sia il messaggio.
Attraverso la storia di una donna forte e non convenzionale, che ha il coraggio di pensare diversamente... anche se poi non servirà a salvare nessuno... Appelfeld ci fa riflettere sulla stupidà dei pregiudizi.

[Jurgita Zabaliuniene · Rating 1 out of 5]

Labai retas atvejis kai nebaigiu skaityti knygos ištiko paėmus šią....perskaičiau pusę knygos ir vis dar nesupratau apie ką ji. Tikrai žinau, kad kartais reikia kantrybės, nes siužeto įdomumas atsitinka vėliau, beg šį kartą ne....neatsitiko....
Knygos aprašymas sužavėjo, suintrigavo...dėl to ir pirkau, bet....žydai niekinami rusėnų, bet gyvena vieni šalia kitų. Katerina arba geria, arba kažko gedi, arba parsiduoda....
Gal kada nors vėliau vėl imsiu šią knygą ir bandysiu suprasti, bet šiuo metu dedu į lentyną ir imu kitą.

[La Lectora · Rating 1 out of 5]

Cuesta entrar en la historia por la manera de narrar del autor que de tan simple resulta difícil, además ,aparte de la protagonista los personajes se van sucediendo uno tras otro sin que se ahonde en ellos.Me ha impresionado la Europa que presenta, del campesino bruto, borracho y analfabeto . EL libro me ha aburrido y me ha costado terminarle sobre todo porque la historia está narrada de modo muy lento, pesado y repetitivo .

[Anghel Iulia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a nice surprise ! The writer knows how to send you in his story, to empathize with Catarina and all she went through . A time of suffering and crimes where people forget to treat each other equally, where nationality/religion cannot be respected . The essence of this book is deep in worldwide history

[La Churri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Katerina vuelve a casa, a la casa que la vió nacer y con una voz muy especial, muy de mujer de ochenta años que es lo que es, va a contarte su vida. Una vida dura, muy dura. Con dialogos secos, en los que no sobran las palabras. Katerina no me ha dejado soltar el libro hasta llegar al final. Ese final que vuelve al principio. Katerina se va a quedar conmigo durante un tiempo.