I Belong to Vienna: A Jewish Family's Story of Exile and Return

by Anna Goldenberg

A defiant memoir from contemporary Europe: In autumn 1942, Anna Goldenberg’s great-grandparents and one of their sons are deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Hans, their elder son, survives by hiding in an apartment in the middle of Nazi-controlled Vienna. But this is no Anne Frank-like existence; teenage Hans passes time in the municipal library and buys standing room tickets to the Vienna State Opera. He never sees his family again. Goldenberg reconstructs this unique story in magnificent reportage. She also portrays Vienna’s undying allure—although they tried living in the United States after World War Two, both grandparents eventually returned to the Austrian capital. The author, too, has returned to her native Vienna after living in New York herself, and her fierce attachment to her birthplace enlivens her engrossing biographical history. A probing tale of heroism, resilience, identity and belonging, marked by a surprising freshness as a new generation comes to terms with history’s darkest era.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, History, Holocaust, World War II, Judaism, Audiobook

207 pages, Hardcover

First published July 23, 2018

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I belong to Vienna: A Jewish family's story of exile and return by Anna Goldenberg is a defiant memoir from contemporary Europe: In autumn 1942, Anna Goldenberg’s great-grandparents and one of their sons are deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Hans, their elder son, survives by hiding in an apartment in the middle of Nazi-controlled Vienna. But this is no Anne Frank-like existence; teenage Hans passes time in the municipal library and buys standing room tickets to the Vienna State Opera. He never sees his family again. The author portrays Vienna’s undying allure—although they tried living in the United States after World War Two, both grandparents eventually returned to the Austrian capital. The author, also, has returned to her native Vienna after living in New York herself, and her fierce attachment to her birthplace enlivens her engrossing biographical family history. A probing tale of heroism, resilience, identity and belonging, marked by a surprising freshness as a new generation comes to terms with history’s darkest era. Very well-written and held my interest from beginning to end.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I received an ARC via a Librarything giveaway.

This book has two disadvantages. The first is that it doesn’t quite have the space to be what it should. The second is that Daniel Mendelsohn’s Lost is what it is going to be compared to.
Goldenberg’s book is part story of her grandparents and part memoir or thought piece. As such, it doesn’t quite succeed at the memoir part. As for the story of her grandparents, one wishes that she had allowed more of their voice instead of telling the reader what her grandfather wrote or her grandmother said. And it isn’t really a detective story, the facts are there.
This isn’t to say the book is not worth reading. Narratives like this are important, especially since the generation that witnessed it is passing away. It is also important to look at the impact of the Holocaust on the children and grandchildren of survivors.
The book does capture, even if briefly, the life in Vienna before and during the invasion of the Germans. It is both a Vienna that had been and what it became. As such it is worth reading. In terms of much sense reflection or connection to current generations – for instance why the family keeps returning to Vienna, there is not much. There are flashes, but the insights are not closely examined. Goldenberg almost seems to be in a hurry to move away from them. Her thinking about her own life versus hat her grandparents suffered may sound trite to some, but there is something more at work there. Though she doesn’t quite reach it, it is still important.

[Jill Meyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anna Goldenberg is the young author of a family memoir, “I Belong to Vienna”. She attempts to answer what must be an old question posed to members of her family who survived the Holocaust, “why would your family return to live in Vienna after WW2 and the loss of so many family members in the camps?” Well, they returned because it had been their home on both sides of Goldenberg’s family.

Anna Goldenberg begins her book with the family of her grandfather. (She includes a rudimentary family tree from both sides in the front of the book). Anna, who was born in the late 1980’s in Vienna, traced her grandparents lives as they met and then were separated during the war. Her grandmother - Helga - who is still alive, was sent to Terezen with her parents and survived. She returned to Vienna and met and married Hansi. He had lost much of his family in the camps but he survived by meeting an older man, a Christian doctor, who hid him in his apartment and made sure Hansi stayed protected. After Helga and Hansi married they attended medical school and became doctors.

The book is an interesting look at life in Nazi Austria, seen mostly through the memories - both oral and written - of her extended family. Many members had been able to “get out” in time and settled in the United States and Australia. It’s also an interesting look at why the ones who survived the war returned to Vienna to live. The book is written by a member of the third generation of Holocaust survivors.

[Katya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely 5*
Falter's review says it all: "Goldenberg has written a big, important, quiet and disturbing book. It is ruthless and precise, honest and inquisitive...".
A search all about understanding, not about judgement makes this an exceptionally powerful story. Her quest for identity - of her family and herself - has taken me down paths of incomprehensibility and anger, but has also touched me very deeply when she relates about family togetherness, friendship and belonging.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

How do people determine what city or country feels like home? This question was raised by two recent memoirs: “I Want You to Know We’re Still Here: A Post-Holocaust Memoir” by Esther Safran Foer (Tim Duggan Books) and “I Belong to Vienna: A Jewish Family’s Story of Exile and Return” by Anna Goldenberg (New Vessel Press). Foer, who was born in Europe to Holocaust survivors, notes how her mother – who refused ever to set foot in Ukraine once safe in the U.S. – feared for Foer’s safety when she traveled to that country in 2009. Goldenberg writes of how her Austrian grandparents, who lived through World War II, chose to return permanently to Vienna after spending time in the United States. Reading the books felt like a study in contrasts.
See the rest of my review at https://www.thereportergroup.org/past...

[ManOfLaBook.com · Rating 4 out of 5]

For more reviews and bookish posts please visit: http://www.ManOfLaBook.com

I Belong to Vienna: A Jewish Family's Story of Exile and Return by Anna Goldenberg is a memoir of the author’s family experience as European Jews during World War II, as well as reflections on the effects on her life and theirs. Ms. Goldenberg is a reporter who currently lives in Vienna, Austria.

Like many others decedents of families whose members survived the Holocaust, the author set out to find out more about what happened to her relatives during those horrible times. I Belong to Vienna: A Jewish Family's Story of Exile and Return by Anna Goldenberg is the product of that research, and the author’s analysis of those events, how it shaped her family and their lives.

It has been known that Holocaust survivors did not talk about the evens which they survived until very late in life, some of their most traumatic events were not even known to their children. In later years, they have started to open up, projects like Stephen Spielberg’s USC Shoah Foundation has filmed over 52,000 persons telling their stories so there will be a record and they won’t be lost to history.

Ms. Goldenberg managed to piece together stories from her family, as well as dig in archives to find some documents to verify those stories. Part of the book even manages to give the readers a glimpse of what life was like in Vienna before the Nazis took over.

The book missed the mark in recounting the memoirs of her grandparents, but hit the mark when it came to the author’s reflection of the events which they told about. Personal events, mind you, not the big pictures which one can read about in most history books. The narrative feels like the author couldn’t decide if the book will be a memoir, or about the impact the Holocaust had on the survivor’s children and grandchildren – so the book is somewhere in the middle but doesn’t quite hit the mark here nor there. To me it seemed like every time the author had an insight, she chose not to examine it closely, but just moved away from it.

The book is certainly worth reading, we should not be losing this kind of history, and future generations of the author’s family will have something that many others wish they did. Frankly, I’m jealous of Ms. Goldenberg and others like her who has the tenacity and talent to do such research and write a book for future generations of their family, I wish I had just a little bit of that kind of talent.

[Gabby-Lily Raines · Rating 4 out of 5]

Touching story about a young woman's family and how some of them survived in Vienna - as well as how some of them were able to leave - during World War II.

Part of the story is also about connections. The author's connections to Vienna, to her family (both in Vienna and in the US), her family connections to Vienna, to their relatives in the UK and the US, and all of their connections to their history.

I Belong to Vienna is also a story of perceptions. How her perception of her home (city and country) is different from how people she encountered while living in the US is.

Well-written, although sometimes mildly chaotic in how it jumps back and forth. Definitely worth a read.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting story of family survival of the Nazis and their pogams against Jews.

[thewanderingjew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I Belong to Vienna: A Jewish Family's Story of Exile and Return; Anna Goldenberg, Author
The author researched her family’s history, beginning in their homeland, Austria. She wanted to uncover their experiences during the war. I found some of her assessments to be naïve or a bit distant, in the same way as she found some of her relative’s assessments to be less fraught than she had expected. Perhaps it is an Austrian trait to withhold a little emotion.
The prevailing attitude of the author’s family members seemed to be that they would be afforded greater latitude when Hitler rose to power. They had fought for Austria. They had excellent contacts. However, they lacked a grasp of the seriousness of the situation to come. Perhaps the idea that they would not be as badly treated should not have appeased them. They should have been affronted for those that would be treated more poorly. Like Germans who didn’t think Hitler would be so bad if you were a “good German”, or “a good Jew”, they thought they were good Austrians and would be afforded advantages that others would be refused. Even when their rights were curtailed, they found optimism. They were forced out of their apartment, but the apartment they were given was larger and had better plumbing. They thought maybe they would like this Hitler. Things soon changed and so did their attitudes.
After the war ended, many family members never returned and were never heard from again. Eventually, when those who survived discovered the fate of the missing relatives, they learned many had been brutalized and murdered, many had suffered far worse than they had, and they had not had a picnic. The story Anna tells does not seem as horrific as some I have read in the past, however. Perhaps, because several members of her family were in Theresienstadt, the model camp, they had a better lifestyle than those in the death camps. Perhaps her family members had greater forbearance and could withstand the horror around them. Perhaps they simply had more good fortune since those family members did survive and were not sent to the more brutal Concentration Camps. Perhaps the experience in Austria was different than the one in Poland and France and other conquered countries.
From around 1938, when Anna describes the Anschluss, as Germany invades and conquers Austria, until the close, she tries to uncover the family’s secret history. She learned how those who considered themselves true Aryans caused the countries that Germany conquered to descend into a maelstrom of hate and prejudice against all Jews, no matter how slight the relationship. Jews were blamed for all the ills of the people and had to be removed from society. She learned who was deported and who hid in plain sight. She learned how they got through the war. The rest of Germany watched in silence, as their neighbors disappeared. Some watched in fear, since retaliation was brutal, but some completely supported the heinous and brutal Nazi regime and participated in gathering the spoils of war.
I was surprised that the surviving family members returned to Vienna when the war ended. It was their country, they believed, and they wanted to remain. That attitude differs from the victims in most other books I have read on the subject. In most cases, returning victims found their property was gone, their “Aryan” neighbors could not face them and didn’t want to, they were resented, and many times, victimized again. They felt unwelcome. They wanted to go to a country that would welcome them where they could start over to rebuild their broken lives. They did not want to stay with those that had vilified them.
Greed, anti-Semitism and hate for those not purely Aryan, governed the behavior of the Germans in the Nazi Party. They blamed everyone but themselves for their own failures, and wanted what the more successful had achieved without working for it. They needed a scapegoat to explain away their own shortcomings. Of course there were other external influences that caused World War II, such as a failed economy, but that dire state was the result of another unsuccessful war they started, World War I.
I thought that the book was very relevant today, politically, which is unsettling. As our country, the United States, experiences chaos and violence and the media is either silent or promoting it, and the people who are guilty accuse the innocent of causing the problems, I fear we are sliding into the maelstrom without a hope of stopping. Since the news is not accurately reporting violent events, calling them peaceful, they are encouraging it. They appear to be sanctioning the mayhem and protests against innocent victims. They are sanctimonious and think they are better and know better than the factions they are protesting against. It seems all too familiar, as the disenchanted run wild and rampage. Have the Brown Shirts come to America?
This book was given to me by librarything.com

[Kidlitter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A DRC was provided by Edelweiss in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Anna Goldenberg writes of her family's inextricable links to Austria; the country that gave them the opportunity to live happy, rich lives, then turned on them by accepting and aiding the Nazi's persecution of the Jews, only to accept them back after they had suffered so much in the Holocaust. The cruelty that Goldenberg's grandparents suffered by both Germans and their countrymen; the loss of so many of their family members by murder and forced emigration; the terror, privation and harm they suffered on the run or in concentration camps are all detailed in Goldenberg's book. As a journalist, she intricately researched style but deeply emotional tone throughout the book. Equally alive are her amazing grandparents, who each survived to find each other, become physicians, emigrate to America and then, incredibly, return to their country to raise their family and defy ongoing anti-semitism because they too, after all, are from Vienna. An inspiring, harrowing work that makes this reader long to see Tom Stoppard's "Leopoldstadt" one day to even further understand the lure and loss that Vienna represents for Jews.

[J David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I BELONG TO VIENNA A JEWISH FAMILY'S STORY OF EXILE AND RETURN by Anna Goldenberg is a compelling read. It is a sad story and at the same time a happy story. A sad story because so many of Anna's family were murdered in the camps but some survived and many never left Vienna which had been their home. The book is a wonderful way to explore Vienna from the 1930s to the present. A happy story because many did survive the Holocaust and still lived in Vienna. Anna, the author, and of the youngest generation came to New York to get a Masters Degree at Columbia University. As much as she loved New York she felt lonely and wanted to return to the Vienna of her family. Some were surprised by the decision that she would return to the city that the Nazis invaded and that had been so destroyed during the war. But return she did and joined her extensive family and felt at home again. That is what makes it a happy story. The book is very readable and gives you a good feel for Vienna from before, during and after the war. I strongly recommend this book.

[Yoursexylibrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not a memoir. It is just what it claims to be- a Jewish family's story of exile and return.

Goldberg is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and a journalist. She presents facts backed up by documentation or by verbal confirmation from survivors. The information she presents is not meant to be filled with the emotion that one would find in a memoir. She used her grandfather's personal papers to tell his story because he died when she a little girl.

This book is a great model for the Holocaust remembrances yet to be written by the descendants of survivors.

One particular aspect of this family story surprised me- Nazi party members helped Goldberg's grandfather Hansi by giving him clothing and food while he was in hiding during the war. Many people knew he was on hiding and only one reported him. Thankfully the person provided an incorrect location to officials so Hansi remained safe.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars because I think almost every book about the Holocaust should be read. This book focuses on one family, what happened to them during the war, and how and why they picked up the pieces, in America, England, and perhaps surprisingly, in their native Vienna. Written by a granddaughter, the book is based on meticulous research (the author is a freelance journalist) and the memories and mementoes of her grandparents, particularly her grandmother, still alive. It’s an interesting and at times illuminating read. The translation (the book was originally published in German), however, was at times clunky, and the youth of the author (she was born in 1989) at times doesn’t convey the gravitas one might think such a book might have. All in all, though, worth the read.

[Alma · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 2012 Anna Goldenberg moved to New York to attend graduate school and, while there, felt out of place among American Jews for being an Austrian Jew. As time passed she missed her Viennese family so much she became interested in her family history. Through relatives who had immigrated to New York, Anna pieced together stories about her great-grandparents and grandparents. Read the rest of the review on my blog: https://shouldireaditornot.wordpress....

[brightredglow · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a mixed bag for me as a reader. First, I feel like it is never an outsider's place to say how a victim should behave so I try to take myself out that. Those who are Holocaust survivors have unique stories to tell and it should be told at his or her pace.

The narrative works best when her great-grandmother told her story, as complicated and layered and contradictory as it could be. The great-grandfather's story is fascinating and oddly anger-inducing. However, the author often felt the need to insert herself into the story and it got a bit annoying and distracting.

[Eszter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ich habe das Buch von Hansi und Familie gerne gelesen. Gleichzeitig habe ich den Flow zwischen den verschieden teilen der Geschichte vermisst.

Hansi wurde von Pepi während des NS Regimes aufgenommen und damit gerettet. Bruder, Vater und Mutter sind umgebracht worden. Hansi und Pepsi verband eine lebenslange, enge Freundschaft.

Interessant, dass der Buchtitel in englisch und deutsch schon sehr unterschiedlich ist und andere Aspekte der geschickte hervorhebt:

I belong to Vienna vs Versteckte Jahre.

[Perlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an unusual memoir of Viennese Jewry. The author's survivor grandparents had very different different war-time experiences, but both had positive interactions with non-Jewish Viennese, and this tinged their entire experience. The author touches lightly on the challenges of the immigrant experience, deepening our understanding of how the post-liberation had their own turmoil. I thought the brief mention of The Avenue of the Righteous could have been explored further, and brought up some uncomfortable points.

[Gayle Cappelluti · Rating 2 out of 5]

I Belong to Vienna is the author's deep dive into her family history, uncovering the horrific hardship around exile from their beloved Vienna during World War II, breaking up a once robust family, and then their eventual return to their homeland. The rise to success of her grand- and great grandparents is nothing short of admirable and amazing. But why would they return to the very place that cast them out? What would make them want to go back? It's all here in Goldenberg's I Belong to Vienna.

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author tells the interesting story about her family's pull toward their homeland over several generations. Spanning from just before WWII until the present day, the family experienced and (some of them) survived the Holocaust, but always found themselves returning to their native Austria. I enjoyed learning more about the author's lineage and the incredible figures in her family.

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn’t actually written very well, but the content is 5 stars. Truly a fascinating and important story. The ending was bizarrely abrupt. I think the editors really let her down, all in all. Yet very worthwhile to read, even still.

[Lisa of Hopewell]

I learned of this book here: https://themonthlybooking.wordpress.c...

[6ykmapk · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐

[Seth Lynch · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting and moving story of a Viennese family and the holocaust

[OjoAusana · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was interesting to see what Goldenberg was able to find and not able to find in her investigation.

[Andreas Sator · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ganz großartig erzähltes und recherchiertes Buch einer tollen Journalistin.

[Elio Lerner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but superficial

I am a reader of holocaust books so I was glad to read this book. Even thoughit keeps you in the book, this story is a bit superficial.