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A Hole in the Heart of the World: Being Jewish in Eastern Europe
Offers a multigenerational series of portraits that follows individuals in their struggle to salvage a heritage devastated by Communism
352 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 4, 2013
"Berlin before Hitler was much like New York today. Over 150,000 Jews lived in Berlin, many of them extremely prominent and wealthy...In Warsaw before the Second World War, 40 percent of the lawyers were Jewish; in Budapest, Jews had been so instrumental in building up the country's banks and railroads that many were invited to join the nobility....In Czechoslovakia before World War II, Jews shaped Prague's emergence as the cultural crossing point of Central Europe...Destroying the Jews had not just wounded this part of the world. It had ripped out its heart...To understand the synergy of Central Europe and its Jews...consider the role Jews played in New York in the second half of the twentieth century. And imagine what New York would be like - its culture, literary life, and politics - if the city were suddenly bereft of Jews."
"By 1490, there were 30,000 Jews in Poland. By the mid 17th century, that number had increased tenfold to 300,000. By 1800, the number had doubled and doubled again. Of the 2.9 million Jews in the world, almost 1 million of them lived in Poland. By 1936, there were more Jews in Poland than in any other country - almost 3.5 million, 8 percent of Poland's population. In big cities like Warsaw, Jews made up 25 percent of the population."
It was astonishing passages like this that sucked me into this book tracing the lives of a handful of Central European Jews who not only managed to survive the Holocaust but the wretched Communist years and were trying to adjust to post-Communism life. I read this book because I was going to Berlin, Poland (Gdansk and Krakow) and Prague last summer and knew its horrific history would smack me in the face, especially as an American Jew with sketchy Polish/German/Lithuanian ancestry. And for the most part the book was really interesting, although I wish it went past 1997 (when it was published) and that it didn't jump around so much between the various people profiled.
In Central/Eastern Europe, I was very much struck by the very loud absence of Jews in places like Krakow, where we stayed in the former Jewish district - now a hipster area akin to NYC's Lower East Side with smidgins of Jewish culture from Klezmer restaurants to Jewish walking tours to Oskar Schindler's Factory (now a museum) but sadly, no sign of any Jewish people; in Berlin, where I stumbled upon former Jewish haunts everywhere, including a plaque on a leafy gentile Charlottenburg street near my hotel, which reported that this was where Jews last lived before being deported to the camp; and of course, most painfully and hauntingly, at Auschwitz/Birkenau.
Having read a lot about the Holocaust, this book was almost refreshingly different because the profiles focused on the survivors - some of whom became prominent and controversial communists and leaders post-Communism. As the book notes, "When the war ended, there were still 700,000 Jews left in Eastern Europe: 140,000 in Hungary, 51,000 in Czechoslovakia; 50,000 in Poland...even 25,0000 in Germany."
"By 1490, there were 30,000 Jews in Poland. By the mid 17th century, that number had increased tenfold to 300,000. By 1800, the number had doubled and doubled again. Of the 2.9 million Jews in the world, almost 1 million of them lived in Poland. By 1936, there were more Jews in Poland than in any other country - almost 3.5 million, 8 percent of Poland's population. In big cities like Warsaw, Jews made up 25 percent of the population."
It was astonishing passages like this that sucked me into this book tracing the lives of a handful of Central European Jews who not only managed to survive the Holocaust but the wretched Communist years and were trying to adjust to post-Communism life. I read this book because I was going to Berlin, Poland (Gdansk and Krakow) and Prague last summer and knew its horrific history would smack me in the face, especially as an American Jew with sketchy Polish/German/Lithuanian ancestry. And for the most part the book was really interesting, although I wish it went past 1997 (when it was published) and that it didn't jump around so much between the various people profiled.
In Central/Eastern Europe, I was very much struck by the very loud absence of Jews in places like Krakow, where we stayed in the former Jewish district - now a hipster area akin to NYC's Lower East Side with smidgins of Jewish culture from Klezmer restaurants to Jewish walking tours to Oskar Schindler's Factory (now a museum) but sadly, no sign of any Jewish people; in Berlin, where I stumbled upon former Jewish haunts everywhere, including a plaque on a leafy gentile Charlottenburg street near my hotel, which reported that this was where Jews last lived before being deported to the camp; and of course, most painfully and hauntingly, at Auschwitz/Birkenau.
Having read a lot about the Holocaust, this book was almost refreshingly different because the profiles focused on the survivors - some of whom became prominent and controversial communists and leaders post-Communism. As the book notes, "When the war ended, there were still 700,000 Jews left in Eastern Europe: 140,000 in Hungary, 51,000 in Czechoslovakia; 50,000 in Poland...even 25,0000 in Germany."
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April 14, 2024I read this book for the second time just recently (4-24) and it makes me very sad regarding the killing of millions of innocent people. The Jewish communities were thriving in many towns like Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, and Budapest. I will never understand how the German citizens allowed this to happen. I have no desire to go to Germany again. I went once and went to a concentration camp out of Berlin. I don't know how Germans live with themselves and I can't understand why a Jewish person would ever want to live in Germany. I am not Jewish; I am an American Catholic from New Orleans.
May 12, 2013
It was amazing how much of Eastern European Jewry survived the Holocaust. Kaufman spoke with different people in the various countries involved. Interesting look at the survival through the Communist era.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews