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Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure
From a gifted young writer, the story of his quest to reclaim his family’s apartment building in Poland — and of the astonishing entanglement with Nazi treasure hunters that follows
Menachem Kaiser’s brilliantly told story, woven from improbable events and profound revelations, is set in motion when the author takes up his Holocaust-survivor grandfather’s former battle to reclaim the family’s apartment building in Sosnowiec, Poland. Soon, he is on a circuitous path to encounters with the long-time residents of the building, and with a Polish lawyer known as "The Killer."
A surprise discovery — that his grandfather’s cousin not only survived the war, but wrote a secret memoir while a slave laborer in a vast, secret Nazi tunnel complex — leads to Kaiser being adopted as a virtual celebrity by a band of Silesian treasure seekers who revere the memoir as the indispensable guidebook to Nazi plunder.
Propelled by rich original research, Kaiser immerses readers in profound questions that reach far beyond his personal quest. What does it mean to seize your own legacy? Can reclaimed property repair rifts among the living? Plunder is both a deeply immersive adventure story and an irreverent, daring interrogation of inheritance — material, spiritual, familial, and emotional.
Menachem Kaiser’s brilliantly told story, woven from improbable events and profound revelations, is set in motion when the author takes up his Holocaust-survivor grandfather’s former battle to reclaim the family’s apartment building in Sosnowiec, Poland. Soon, he is on a circuitous path to encounters with the long-time residents of the building, and with a Polish lawyer known as "The Killer."
A surprise discovery — that his grandfather’s cousin not only survived the war, but wrote a secret memoir while a slave laborer in a vast, secret Nazi tunnel complex — leads to Kaiser being adopted as a virtual celebrity by a band of Silesian treasure seekers who revere the memoir as the indispensable guidebook to Nazi plunder.
Propelled by rich original research, Kaiser immerses readers in profound questions that reach far beyond his personal quest. What does it mean to seize your own legacy? Can reclaimed property repair rifts among the living? Plunder is both a deeply immersive adventure story and an irreverent, daring interrogation of inheritance — material, spiritual, familial, and emotional.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published March 16, 2021
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February 7, 2023
Plunder: a memoir of family property and stolen Nazi treasure
A fascinating, suspenseful and at times a frustrating read.
This is a non fiction account of Menachem Kaiser’s journey to reclaim his grandfathers property in Poland that was stolen from his family during the Holocaust. The author discovers so much more about his ancestors and the treasure hunters who seek buried treasure and hidden relics of the Nazi era.
I was drawn to this book as I have always been curious about the property stolen by the Nazis and if it’s rightful owners were successful in reclaiming their ancestral homes and properties and this book fitted my curiosity so well.
I was fascinated by the author’s story and his ancestor’s journey. I enjoyed learning about project Riese, the Nazi secret underground lair. However the book gets a little lost and the author goes off the beaten track and meanders all over the place, he really needed reining in by his editor as it became a bit tedious and as for the ending. I wanted to throw the book at the wall, how did that possibly get past an editor? and make it the conclusion in this book. I don’t think I have read such a ridiculous ending to what could have been an amazing book since I read Behind Her Eyes and I can forgive that ending as it was fiction.
That said I don’t regret reading the book as there were without doubt many 5 star chapters within the account and while the story goes off the beaten track and the ending frustrated me I still enjoyed the book.
A fascinating, suspenseful and at times a frustrating read.
This is a non fiction account of Menachem Kaiser’s journey to reclaim his grandfathers property in Poland that was stolen from his family during the Holocaust. The author discovers so much more about his ancestors and the treasure hunters who seek buried treasure and hidden relics of the Nazi era.
I was drawn to this book as I have always been curious about the property stolen by the Nazis and if it’s rightful owners were successful in reclaiming their ancestral homes and properties and this book fitted my curiosity so well.
I was fascinated by the author’s story and his ancestor’s journey. I enjoyed learning about project Riese, the Nazi secret underground lair. However the book gets a little lost and the author goes off the beaten track and meanders all over the place, he really needed reining in by his editor as it became a bit tedious and as for the ending. I wanted to throw the book at the wall, how did that possibly get past an editor? and make it the conclusion in this book. I don’t think I have read such a ridiculous ending to what could have been an amazing book since I read Behind Her Eyes and I can forgive that ending as it was fiction.
That said I don’t regret reading the book as there were without doubt many 5 star chapters within the account and while the story goes off the beaten track and the ending frustrated me I still enjoyed the book.
November 10, 2021
Leidraad is een pand in Polen dat de grootvader van de schrijver achterliet toen hij emigreerde en dat de schrijver probeert terug te krijgen. Hij loopt hierbij tegen Poolse bureaucratie aan. Ook ontmoet hij schatjagers waardoor hij in ondergrondse gangen en ruimtes komt die de Nazi's hebben achtergelaten.
De grootvader was de enige overlevende van de oorlog, hij had zijn gestorven familie gekend en toen hij overleed zei de schrijver: we wisten dat 'ze' gestorven waren, maar we hadden geen idee wie 'ze' waren. We wisten niet waar ze gestorven waren of hoe ze gestorven waren. Dus toen mijn grootvader stierf, stierven zij een ander soort dood.
Ik vond niet alles even interessant. De schrijver bijt zich vast in onderwerpen op een manier die mij doet twijfelen of het materiaal wel toereikend genoeg was om een heel boek aan te wijden.
Leading is a property in Poland that the author's grandfather left behind when he emigrated and that the author is trying to get back. He runs into Polish bureaucracy. He also encounters treasure hunters through which he enters underground passages and rooms that the Nazis have left behind.
The grandfather was the only survivor of the war, he had known his dead family and when he died the writer said: we knew 'they' had died, but we had no idea who 'they' were. We did not know where they had died or how they had died. So when my grandfather died, they died a different kind of death.
I didn't find everything equally interesting. The author gets into subjects in a way that makes me question whether the material was sufficient to devote an entire book to.
De grootvader was de enige overlevende van de oorlog, hij had zijn gestorven familie gekend en toen hij overleed zei de schrijver: we wisten dat 'ze' gestorven waren, maar we hadden geen idee wie 'ze' waren. We wisten niet waar ze gestorven waren of hoe ze gestorven waren. Dus toen mijn grootvader stierf, stierven zij een ander soort dood.
Ik vond niet alles even interessant. De schrijver bijt zich vast in onderwerpen op een manier die mij doet twijfelen of het materiaal wel toereikend genoeg was om een heel boek aan te wijden.
Leading is a property in Poland that the author's grandfather left behind when he emigrated and that the author is trying to get back. He runs into Polish bureaucracy. He also encounters treasure hunters through which he enters underground passages and rooms that the Nazis have left behind.
The grandfather was the only survivor of the war, he had known his dead family and when he died the writer said: we knew 'they' had died, but we had no idea who 'they' were. We did not know where they had died or how they had died. So when my grandfather died, they died a different kind of death.
I didn't find everything equally interesting. The author gets into subjects in a way that makes me question whether the material was sufficient to devote an entire book to.
October 22, 2021
“Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure”, by Menachem Kaiser, is a bit of a mishmash of family history and Polish history. Kaiser, who is the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, was raised in Canada and currently lives in New York City.
The number of Holocaust survivors is diminishing as time takes its toll. For many years we had the survivors telling their own stories; then their children took over, and now we’re reading the third generation. Many of these authors never met their grandparents who suffered, instead using photographs, written materials, and official documents, they put together a narrative of their ancestors’ lives and experiences.
Menachem Kaiser becomes interested in his grandfather’s story and was determined to “find out more”. This involved research in both mainly Poland and Israel. There’s also - supposedly - a building owned by the Kajer family in the town of Sosnowiec, Poland. Kaiser visits and picks up a crew of lawyers and historians to help him, first, to find the building, and second, to declare the owners dead, so Menachem and his family could take over the building. But, where IS the building, supposedly built in the interwar period. But the building at the site was definitely built in the Soviet era. More problems turn up and Menachem gets involved with a group of Polish treasure seekers, mainly looking in the Silesia area of Poland.
It was then that Menachem Kaiser’s book lost me. The treasure seekers are looking for the often mythical “Nazi Gold” and other wartime souvenirs. They’re wandering around caves and other, secret hiding places. Did the Nazis make a flying saucer in the last days of the war? Maybe...
There’s also a family member - a survivor named Abraham Kajer - who was not Menachem’s grandfather, but a close cousin. He was famous in the treasure seekers community, and Menachem stature within the group was enhanced by this connection.
I never knew where Kaiser was going in his memoir. A good book editor should have been let loose on the manuscript before publication. It could have been a better book.
The number of Holocaust survivors is diminishing as time takes its toll. For many years we had the survivors telling their own stories; then their children took over, and now we’re reading the third generation. Many of these authors never met their grandparents who suffered, instead using photographs, written materials, and official documents, they put together a narrative of their ancestors’ lives and experiences.
Menachem Kaiser becomes interested in his grandfather’s story and was determined to “find out more”. This involved research in both mainly Poland and Israel. There’s also - supposedly - a building owned by the Kajer family in the town of Sosnowiec, Poland. Kaiser visits and picks up a crew of lawyers and historians to help him, first, to find the building, and second, to declare the owners dead, so Menachem and his family could take over the building. But, where IS the building, supposedly built in the interwar period. But the building at the site was definitely built in the Soviet era. More problems turn up and Menachem gets involved with a group of Polish treasure seekers, mainly looking in the Silesia area of Poland.
It was then that Menachem Kaiser’s book lost me. The treasure seekers are looking for the often mythical “Nazi Gold” and other wartime souvenirs. They’re wandering around caves and other, secret hiding places. Did the Nazis make a flying saucer in the last days of the war? Maybe...
There’s also a family member - a survivor named Abraham Kajer - who was not Menachem’s grandfather, but a close cousin. He was famous in the treasure seekers community, and Menachem stature within the group was enhanced by this connection.
I never knew where Kaiser was going in his memoir. A good book editor should have been let loose on the manuscript before publication. It could have been a better book.
October 13, 2020
Menachen Kaiser never met his paternal grandfather, who passed away before Menachem was born. Yet, every year, on the "yarzheit", or anniversary, of his grandfather's death, Menachem and his father would visit the cemetery to say Kaddish / prayers in his grandfather's honour. Menachem, (and for that matter, Menachem's father), did not know much about his grandfather's life in Poland. He had rarely spoke about it. As an adult, on a trip to Poland, Menachem reminds himself of (the one thing he remembers hearing about his grandfather), that is, his grandfather's failed attempts to reclaim property that their family owned before the war. With the address of the property in hand, Menachem goes to Sosnowiec to acquaint himself with the city (and "home") of his paternal grandfather. #Plunder is Menachem Kaiser's detailed account of his attempt to settle his grandfather's claim. for this property.
Ultimately, the need to find out whether Menachem finally succeeds in receiving "reparations" for what his grandfather claimed rightfully belonged to the Kaiser family before the war, is what kept me reading this book right to the end. I will not ruin the book by saying what happens. But it was an extremely interesting read, and it brings to the forefront the complications (and ethical dilemmas) of what belongs to you, after you leave, after a war, and, so many years later....
Besides Menachem's personal search, on his quest he is introduced to a population of Nazi treasure hunters, that most people know little about. In Silesia, Hitler had (mostly Jewish) labourers dig out miles and miles of underground tunnels, where it is believed a train full of gold, as well as many other treasures are hidden. The search for these treasures is real, and highly regulated by the Polish government. The crazy part of this is that these treasure seekers do not connect their desire to acquire Nazi loot, with the evil at the root of the Nazis.
This is a very interesting read, Thank you #netgalley for this e-ARC of #plunder, in return for my review.
Ultimately, the need to find out whether Menachem finally succeeds in receiving "reparations" for what his grandfather claimed rightfully belonged to the Kaiser family before the war, is what kept me reading this book right to the end. I will not ruin the book by saying what happens. But it was an extremely interesting read, and it brings to the forefront the complications (and ethical dilemmas) of what belongs to you, after you leave, after a war, and, so many years later....
Besides Menachem's personal search, on his quest he is introduced to a population of Nazi treasure hunters, that most people know little about. In Silesia, Hitler had (mostly Jewish) labourers dig out miles and miles of underground tunnels, where it is believed a train full of gold, as well as many other treasures are hidden. The search for these treasures is real, and highly regulated by the Polish government. The crazy part of this is that these treasure seekers do not connect their desire to acquire Nazi loot, with the evil at the root of the Nazis.
This is a very interesting read, Thank you #netgalley for this e-ARC of #plunder, in return for my review.
July 17, 2021
I don't think I've ever given one star to a book I actually finished reading. I'd give it zero stars if that was available.
I heard the author on NPR discussing his work; it sounded interesting. Reserved the book from the local liberry.
This guy missed the mark. Completely. Totally. How does this happen?
He goes on and on (and on and on and on) about the ethics and pathos of reclaiming a pre WW II family owned apartment building in Poland, but fails to tell us if he is successful? Give me a break!
He also recounts a "treasure hunt" of ten solid gold "eggs" worth hunderts of thousands of dollars, squirreled away in Poland attic by some guy's father in law, and neither does he tell us how that works out, either.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO SATISFACTION to this book, after the effort it takes to slog thru it.
----->>> None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nichts.
I wade thru (practically in "hip waders" it is that thick) all of his reasonings, justifications and legal wrangling, and get no satisfaction at the end. Where's the beef?
Please forgive the crude language here (but it is appropriate!), but this book was a literary "jerk off."
I don't know how he ever got it published.
It was an interesting read but it just left out the ending? A book with no ending? What's wrong with this loser?
It's sort of like a murder mystery that does not get solved.
This book was a serious, vast disappointment. Don't waste your time.
I heard the author on NPR discussing his work; it sounded interesting. Reserved the book from the local liberry.
This guy missed the mark. Completely. Totally. How does this happen?
He goes on and on (and on and on and on) about the ethics and pathos of reclaiming a pre WW II family owned apartment building in Poland, but fails to tell us if he is successful? Give me a break!
He also recounts a "treasure hunt" of ten solid gold "eggs" worth hunderts of thousands of dollars, squirreled away in Poland attic by some guy's father in law, and neither does he tell us how that works out, either.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO SATISFACTION to this book, after the effort it takes to slog thru it.
----->>> None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nichts.
I wade thru (practically in "hip waders" it is that thick) all of his reasonings, justifications and legal wrangling, and get no satisfaction at the end. Where's the beef?
Please forgive the crude language here (but it is appropriate!), but this book was a literary "jerk off."
I don't know how he ever got it published.
It was an interesting read but it just left out the ending? A book with no ending? What's wrong with this loser?
It's sort of like a murder mystery that does not get solved.
This book was a serious, vast disappointment. Don't waste your time.
December 15, 2021
A fresh, meaningful, and fascinating addition to the trove of Holocaust books, also at times unexpectedly comedic, that begins with the author seeking to know more about his grandfather, who survived the Holocaust though none of his family members did. The grandfather remains unknowable, except that for a couple of decades he, and then the author's father, attempted to reclaim a building in a small town in Poland. Is it where the grandfather grew up? The author visits, meets those living in the building, finds out its history, except is it the right building? He hires The Killer, a lawyer in a pink track suit, to begin the process of reclaiming the building, but first that means declaring his relatives dead in the Holocaust dead, not an easy proposition. There are Polish treasure hunters and how do they view these vanished concentration camps - as places of death that reverberate with historical meaning, or simply as grounds where they seek lost treasures? There's the familial connection the author uncovers, to a man the Polish treasure hunters revere, a Holocaust survivor named Abraham who wrote a small memoir about his time in the Polish camps while he was a slave laborer in an enormous, secret Nazi tunnel complex known as Project Riese, about which almost nothing is known historically, other than from Abraham's book. History, family, the unknowability of all that was lost in the Holocaust, all the lives and property stolen by the Nazis (and Poles too), the frequent memory-trips Jews must take to find the pasts of their dead relatives, the Polish court system, and more.
June 2, 2021
Menachem Kaiser never knew his grandfather, a Holocaust survivor who tried unsuccessfully to regain his lost property: an apartment building in Poland. Years later, Kaiser takes up the quest anew. But along the way, he realizes that his reclamation effort is about much more than just an apartment building - it's about memory, suffering, history, and the legacy of the family members who came before.
I've never read another book like this one - Kaiser writes eloquently about his dealings with the Polish government, as well as a merry band of Silesian treasure hunters. I could feel his sorrow and frustration as he tried to assemble a picture of the past and reclaim the property that was rightfully his. My one problem with the book is that it got a little repetitive in the last section - there's only so many times you can discuss Polish court happenings and keep a reader's interest. But this is a chronicle of a true historical and legal odyssey, and I am grateful to have learned about Kaiser's family history. 3.5 stars rounded up.
Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for providing an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I've never read another book like this one - Kaiser writes eloquently about his dealings with the Polish government, as well as a merry band of Silesian treasure hunters. I could feel his sorrow and frustration as he tried to assemble a picture of the past and reclaim the property that was rightfully his. My one problem with the book is that it got a little repetitive in the last section - there's only so many times you can discuss Polish court happenings and keep a reader's interest. But this is a chronicle of a true historical and legal odyssey, and I am grateful to have learned about Kaiser's family history. 3.5 stars rounded up.
Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for providing an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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May 12, 2021I hope this memoir wins a Jewish book award or two. It’s smartly written. I don’t mean this at all as an insult, but it lands squarely in a mainstay of 19th century Yiddish literature, the shlemiel narrative. Except in this case, the shlemiel is someone with a way with words, a keen sense of observation and whose grandfather survived the Holocaust. If he were alive today, Mendele would enjoy this memoir. IB Singer wouldn’t enjoy it, but only because he was by nature hyper-competitive and would view this memoir as a threat.
The narrator tries to do the near impossible - recover his grandfather’s Polish real estate - hires incompetents, never learns Polish (for me, this is both hilarious and dumbfounding), and makes a ridiculous number of missteps. Yet he somehow leaves with his dignity in tact mostly because he is mistaken for the grandson of a legendary Holocaust survivor. This is both a thoughtful and maybe unintentionally comic memoir (I did laugh out loud at the missteps).
The narrator tries to do the near impossible - recover his grandfather’s Polish real estate - hires incompetents, never learns Polish (for me, this is both hilarious and dumbfounding), and makes a ridiculous number of missteps. Yet he somehow leaves with his dignity in tact mostly because he is mistaken for the grandson of a legendary Holocaust survivor. This is both a thoughtful and maybe unintentionally comic memoir (I did laugh out loud at the missteps).
March 31, 2021
I had very high expectations for this book as it was fairly highly lauded in the NYT book review. But it did not meet my expectations. It was written in an odd way. It jumped around with lots of side explanations. There were parts of the book that I really enjoyed. Other parts not so much. My best metaphor would be tasting food. Someone might tell you something is really good. So you taste it and cannot really decide if it is good or not. So you taste it again,and again trying to determine if it is really good or not. That is how I felt about this book. I kept tasting it to see if was good or not. By my final taste I was at the end of the book. My conclusion, not my favorite book.
January 13, 2021
This book was a big surprise for me, but not a disappointment. Basing on the publisher's description, I was expecting a fun adventure story. You can find traces of it, but the book is mostly a blend of very personal memoir and essays on the nature of human memory, heritage, Shoah, conspiracy theories, and many more topics.
It is exceptionally well written and insightful, although I have to admit that sometimes the author should listen to himself and "stop being cranky" about some stuff - he can be extremely touchy. I also had sometimes felt uneasy about his attitude towards some of the people he met. Nonetheless, it was a very interesting read.
Thanks to the publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and NetGalley for the advance copy of this book.
It is exceptionally well written and insightful, although I have to admit that sometimes the author should listen to himself and "stop being cranky" about some stuff - he can be extremely touchy. I also had sometimes felt uneasy about his attitude towards some of the people he met. Nonetheless, it was a very interesting read.
Thanks to the publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and NetGalley for the advance copy of this book.
June 29, 2023
3.5
„Grabież” reklamuje się głównie jako książka o odzyskiwaniu rodzinnego majątku autora, a konkretnie kamienicy w Sosnowcu, która przed II wojną należała do jego dziadka. Dziadkowi przez wiele lat nie udawało się tego dokonać, a teraz Menachem Kaiser wraca do Polski i rozpoczyna potyczki z polskim prawem i absurdalną biurokracją.
Ale ale, no właśnie, to nie jest jedyny temat tego reportażu. Oprócz odzyskiwania nieruchomości, poznajemy sporo historii o szukaniu innych skarbów pozostawionych przez Żydów w Polsce oraz o samych współczesnych poszukiwaczach, którzy zabierają autora do podziemnych nazistowskich labiryntów. Pisze też o słynnym mitycznym złotym pociągu, złocie pochowanym w ścianach dolnośląskich kamienic czy o Abrahamie Kajzerze, autorze obozowego dziennika „Za drutami śmierci”.
Podczas czytania czułam niedosyt przez za mało informacji w głównym temacie książki i kamienicy, ale po przemyśleniu wydaje mi się, że po prostu nie dało się z tego wycisnąć nic wiecej mając tak niewielką ilość materiałów. Ostatecznie historie poboczne i tak były dla mnie bardzo interesujące (no dobra, może nie wszystkie), dodatkowo Kaiser wplata w swoją opowieść sporo refleksyjnych wstawek nad pamięcią czy rozterkami moralnymi nad odzyskiwaniem rodzinnego majątku po kilkudziesięciu latach. Ale nie ma tu patosu, nie jest to też książka przygnębiajaca, mimo podejmowanej tematyki dotykającej Holocaustu. Co wiecej, jest tu nawet szczypta humoru. Polecam. I PS. jestem fanką prawniczki Kilerki i jej córek!
„Grabież” reklamuje się głównie jako książka o odzyskiwaniu rodzinnego majątku autora, a konkretnie kamienicy w Sosnowcu, która przed II wojną należała do jego dziadka. Dziadkowi przez wiele lat nie udawało się tego dokonać, a teraz Menachem Kaiser wraca do Polski i rozpoczyna potyczki z polskim prawem i absurdalną biurokracją.
Ale ale, no właśnie, to nie jest jedyny temat tego reportażu. Oprócz odzyskiwania nieruchomości, poznajemy sporo historii o szukaniu innych skarbów pozostawionych przez Żydów w Polsce oraz o samych współczesnych poszukiwaczach, którzy zabierają autora do podziemnych nazistowskich labiryntów. Pisze też o słynnym mitycznym złotym pociągu, złocie pochowanym w ścianach dolnośląskich kamienic czy o Abrahamie Kajzerze, autorze obozowego dziennika „Za drutami śmierci”.
Podczas czytania czułam niedosyt przez za mało informacji w głównym temacie książki i kamienicy, ale po przemyśleniu wydaje mi się, że po prostu nie dało się z tego wycisnąć nic wiecej mając tak niewielką ilość materiałów. Ostatecznie historie poboczne i tak były dla mnie bardzo interesujące (no dobra, może nie wszystkie), dodatkowo Kaiser wplata w swoją opowieść sporo refleksyjnych wstawek nad pamięcią czy rozterkami moralnymi nad odzyskiwaniem rodzinnego majątku po kilkudziesięciu latach. Ale nie ma tu patosu, nie jest to też książka przygnębiajaca, mimo podejmowanej tematyki dotykającej Holocaustu. Co wiecej, jest tu nawet szczypta humoru. Polecam. I PS. jestem fanką prawniczki Kilerki i jej córek!
September 12, 2021
This book was fascinating, though-provoking, and gripping; the humorous absurdism of a Kafka story, the twists and turns of a treasure hunt, questions of memory and the myth-making that is so often baked into the process of forming such memories, are all examined from every angle. The author's closing rumination on fiction vs. non-fiction was so insightful and cut so close to the bone; so often, the stories we want to create and tell are neater, easier, and more inevitable than reality. The true stories are confusing, abruptly tangential, frustratingly open-ended. But more real, too. To read a story like this, told as it really happened is, itself, a kind of gift.
May 1, 2021
I think the best part of this book was the author’s unflinching acknowledgment of his many mistakes. Much respect on that account. Yes, the text was a bit meandering, but that was the beauty of it—much like a treasure hunt is with surprises and disappointments along the way. The musings on memory/history/family were some of the best parts of the book.
March 16, 2021
Menachem Kaiser’s irreverent and poignant (isn’t that a pair of adjectives?) memoir begins with the death of his grandfather, a man he never knew but whose name he shares and whose Holocaust story sent the latter Menachem on a meandering journey through the Polish landscape and legal system in an attempt to understand more and to reclaim a property that belonged to his family nearly a century earlier.
Kaiser travels to Sosnowiec, a small town in the region of Silesia, which borders the Czech Republic and is home to countless ethnic populations and a rich history of demographic confusion and love of mystery. In this strange community, Kaiser becomes acquainted with a group of “treasure hunters” whose fascination with Nazi-era memorabilia and artifacts is both admirable and entirely disconcerting, and he discovers a familial tie to these explorers that turns him into something of niche celebrity.
As he follows the paper trail left by his grandfather and other relatives, Kaiser makes mistakes and missteps that are frustrating, embarrassing, and exhausting, but he infuses his storytelling with a sense of reflection and humor that emphasized the random significance of family and place. I was impressed by Kaiser’s ability to tease out details of a single moment and mine them for a cohesive story while acknowledging how much was unknown and unknowable.
However, I thought the book needed some cleaning up around its transitions. More than once, I had to stop to figure out what we were talking about and how we got there, particularly in the sections about conspiracy theories and drinking in the woods. Certainly, these stories and characters added life and energy and depth to Kaiser’s efforts to navigate property law and legal jargon—in Polish—but it felt disappointingly disjointed and, at times, overly simplified.
As Kaiser himself acknowledges towards the end of the book, Holocaust memoirs, biographies, and histories are plentiful, which can have the effect of diluting the undeniable power of each individual story. Both parts of this statement are true, but they hardly apply to this book; Kaiser writes around explicit tragedy and devastation to write a Holocaust story unlike any I’ve read before.
I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley through Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and author Menacham Kaiser. Opinions stated in this review are honest and my own.
Release Date: 16 March 2021
Kaiser travels to Sosnowiec, a small town in the region of Silesia, which borders the Czech Republic and is home to countless ethnic populations and a rich history of demographic confusion and love of mystery. In this strange community, Kaiser becomes acquainted with a group of “treasure hunters” whose fascination with Nazi-era memorabilia and artifacts is both admirable and entirely disconcerting, and he discovers a familial tie to these explorers that turns him into something of niche celebrity.
As he follows the paper trail left by his grandfather and other relatives, Kaiser makes mistakes and missteps that are frustrating, embarrassing, and exhausting, but he infuses his storytelling with a sense of reflection and humor that emphasized the random significance of family and place. I was impressed by Kaiser’s ability to tease out details of a single moment and mine them for a cohesive story while acknowledging how much was unknown and unknowable.
However, I thought the book needed some cleaning up around its transitions. More than once, I had to stop to figure out what we were talking about and how we got there, particularly in the sections about conspiracy theories and drinking in the woods. Certainly, these stories and characters added life and energy and depth to Kaiser’s efforts to navigate property law and legal jargon—in Polish—but it felt disappointingly disjointed and, at times, overly simplified.
As Kaiser himself acknowledges towards the end of the book, Holocaust memoirs, biographies, and histories are plentiful, which can have the effect of diluting the undeniable power of each individual story. Both parts of this statement are true, but they hardly apply to this book; Kaiser writes around explicit tragedy and devastation to write a Holocaust story unlike any I’ve read before.
I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley through Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and author Menacham Kaiser. Opinions stated in this review are honest and my own.
Release Date: 16 March 2021
April 25, 2021
The author, a decedent of Holocaust victims and survivors, seeks to reclaim their family home in Poland. Or is it their family home? That premise sets a motif for the book in which nothing is what it appears to be. In order to reclaim the property, his relatives are assumed to be alive and he has to prove that are dead, even though they would have died of natural causes by now anyway even if they had survived the concentration camps. He is befriended by troops of Polish Nazi Treasure hunters, who mistake him for the grandson of their favorite author, an enslaved Nazi laborer, who documented Nazi construction and thus enables their search. The life mission of the Treasure Hunters is to acquire and display Nazi-themed memorabilia, but they profess to loath the Nazis. The author does not speak Polish so all this activity presented through the filter of translation, further contributing to his confusion and mistrust of information, is this really what is happening, and what is going on here? The dualistic theme of Reality versus Illusion is mirrored throughout by other dualisms; Pole versus Jew, American Jew versus Polish Jew, Dead versus Alive, Alive versus Not Alive, and so many more, all occasions for the author to consider their significance in great depths through the book in humorous, self-deprecating , thoughtful, and insightful meditations that make up the bulk of the book. These soliloquies are funny and thought-provoking, and are the reason that I would read any book on any subject by this author in the future. The major gift that the author imparted is to consider our views of nostalgia for family history. Like many other people, I am very curious about the lives of my family that are just out of reach of the memory of anyone still alive; the Civil War, the Great Depression, the World Wars in Europe. This book helps me understand that while I want to know as much as I can about these experiences, my ancestors probably did everything they could to try to forget them. Why would you want to know about that? they might say, it was awful, what more do you need to know? This is the final duality of a book that I picked up due to romantic notions of my own Polish Jewish family; do not romanticize other people’s lives, they are likely to be as prosaic as your own. Do not seek meaning from other people’s lives, try to understand your own instead.
October 3, 2020
I have always wondered what it must have been like for people to return from the camps and find their homes were taken. I have also wondered how the people in those homes felt - perhaps not all of them knew those homes were stolen. This is an I trusting book which offers insights into the rights and wrongs of inheritance and how damage can be perpetuated over generations. Beautifully written, the author tells a story with skill and sensitivity.
May 25, 2021
Menachem Kaiser has written a beautiful tale of loss and remembrance. Everyone should read it.
December 17, 2022
I've been waffling on this one for days...am half-way through another book and remain uncertain.
I had a hard time with the first half: I thought it was meandering and lacked cohesion. But Kaiser is such a good writer and I stuck with it. Then, in the last third, he discovered and recounted his grandfather's cousin's Holocaust story and it is a remarkable one. I was riveted. Finally, Kaiser tried to bring some closure to his quest for restitution (which becomes, rightly so, Kaiser notes, less about property per se, that is, as asset/value, and more about who? how? when? then what happened? and most fascinating, where? He brings home that Holocaust camps are not all preserved and remain monuments and monumental: sometimes they're hard to locate and you're unsure if you're in the "right"? place? I found this equally riveting.)
I thought Kaiser was insightful and honest about being of a generation thrice-removed from the Holocaust: he never wants to sentimentalize, sees that as "fake" somehow, but his voice also never wavers from looking at the Shoah squarely, what it was historically, why it remains the horror it is. Lastly, he's unflinchingly honest about himself and his own implication in the telling. He makes a comment about how wrong it is to make yourself the protagonist of someone else's story...which I took to mean suffering. And this struck me as one of the truest things I've ever read. I've been thinking about it ever since.
I had a hard time with the first half: I thought it was meandering and lacked cohesion. But Kaiser is such a good writer and I stuck with it. Then, in the last third, he discovered and recounted his grandfather's cousin's Holocaust story and it is a remarkable one. I was riveted. Finally, Kaiser tried to bring some closure to his quest for restitution (which becomes, rightly so, Kaiser notes, less about property per se, that is, as asset/value, and more about who? how? when? then what happened? and most fascinating, where? He brings home that Holocaust camps are not all preserved and remain monuments and monumental: sometimes they're hard to locate and you're unsure if you're in the "right"? place? I found this equally riveting.)
I thought Kaiser was insightful and honest about being of a generation thrice-removed from the Holocaust: he never wants to sentimentalize, sees that as "fake" somehow, but his voice also never wavers from looking at the Shoah squarely, what it was historically, why it remains the horror it is. Lastly, he's unflinchingly honest about himself and his own implication in the telling. He makes a comment about how wrong it is to make yourself the protagonist of someone else's story...which I took to mean suffering. And this struck me as one of the truest things I've ever read. I've been thinking about it ever since.
December 15, 2021
A saga of identity, family, history, myth, bureaucracy, sentiment, attachment and loss is what Menachem Kaiser's Plunder revolves around. On the forefront this seems to be a novel narrating the story of a man in pursuit of reclaiming his lost property, one that his grandfather once owned; however behind this deceptive facade lies an engrossing tale. Set in Sosnowiec, Poland is an apartment building plundered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. While on this trail the narrator, that is the author himself, comes across concentration camps and treasure hunters, and on one instance he finds himself in the company of 'The Killer', a Polish lawyer and then works in tandem with a troop of treasure-seekers.
Plunder is a witty, morally convoluted, hilarious, candid and suspenseful sketch of contemporary history and politics peppered with Kaiser's humour and lots of shady characters. Thoroughly encompassing the theme of love, loss, longing and whether reclaiming a plundered land can put right the schism between people Plunder makes for a highly engrossing read.
Plunder is a witty, morally convoluted, hilarious, candid and suspenseful sketch of contemporary history and politics peppered with Kaiser's humour and lots of shady characters. Thoroughly encompassing the theme of love, loss, longing and whether reclaiming a plundered land can put right the schism between people Plunder makes for a highly engrossing read.
July 24, 2023
Interesting read. Author travels to Poland to search for his families history during the Nazi era and the property that may rightfully belong to them. The book covers a lot of issues regarding how we remember the past, our responsibilities, etc.
April 26, 2022
Book about attempting to recover family property "lost" during wwii. The synopsis highlights details that make this sound really interesting: war plunder, weird lawyers, nazi treasure hunters and a long lost relative who survived the camps and wrote a memoir. All those things were certainly written about in this book, but it ended up feeling like a series of seemingly unrelated stories.
The beginning of the book was great, the opening chapters about the author and his family were really interesting. He has a lot of insight into these people, and there are lots of characters in the family. He did, however, start out with a lot of admissions about how he went about things the wrong way, and I'll say a bit more about this at the end.
Once he went to Poland, things started taking a turn. The story flipped back and forth between his legal struggles, and this long lost cousin of his grandfather who survived the war, and the nazi treasure hunters (that is to say they are hunting "nazi" treasure, not that they are nazis hunting treasure, although that's not so clear cut...). The original story ended up taking a backseat to what I assume the author thought were more interesting things, but that were only semi related at best to the property story. And a lot of it felt like filler.
When the story was on his recovery of the family property, there were whole sections of the book devoted to following along the timeline of what he was trying to discover only to realize that all these details that he's feeding us go nowhere. He chose to tell this story in the natural way it unfolded for him, so we could feel like we were following it in real time, but it was very disappointing to read whole chapters about people who turned out to be unrelated to anything else. We end up with backstory about a building that turns out to not be the actual building that belonged to his family, and while that could be interesting, given the other unrelated components to this book, it ends up being just another side quest that confuses more than enlightens.
IMO, this book would have been better told as different stories. They were all interesting in their own way, but really didn't work as a book crammed together with disparate elements. It felt like the author had a lot to say and each component was important to him, but I was lost about what the point was. A book just about Abraham (the grandfather's cousin) would have been great, he seemed like an interesting character and he had a whole story to be told. The way this part took over the rest of the book was really uncomfortable for me, sort of like the author adopted this other person to fill in his book that was otherwise not a full story.
So, the author talked a lot about how he went about things the wrong way, was dishonest with some people, including family and the Polish legal system. At some point, this started to feel like he wrote this book as his own way of explaining his motivation for things. It didn't leave me particularly convinced. Especially considering
All that said, there were some very interesting parts to the book. The writing is often quite good and the author is very insightful in many ways. I think this could have used some real editing to give it a better structure and stay on point a bit better.
In the epilogue the author says he considered writing this as a fictional story, but chose to go memoir instead. Then he tells a story about meeting up with an American also seeking his family's lost property. It's a whole tale,
The beginning of the book was great, the opening chapters about the author and his family were really interesting. He has a lot of insight into these people, and there are lots of characters in the family. He did, however, start out with a lot of admissions about how he went about things the wrong way, and I'll say a bit more about this at the end.
Once he went to Poland, things started taking a turn. The story flipped back and forth between his legal struggles, and this long lost cousin of his grandfather who survived the war, and the nazi treasure hunters (that is to say they are hunting "nazi" treasure, not that they are nazis hunting treasure, although that's not so clear cut...). The original story ended up taking a backseat to what I assume the author thought were more interesting things, but that were only semi related at best to the property story. And a lot of it felt like filler.
When the story was on his recovery of the family property, there were whole sections of the book devoted to following along the timeline of what he was trying to discover only to realize that all these details that he's feeding us go nowhere. He chose to tell this story in the natural way it unfolded for him, so we could feel like we were following it in real time, but it was very disappointing to read whole chapters about people who turned out to be unrelated to anything else. We end up with backstory about a building that turns out to not be the actual building that belonged to his family, and while that could be interesting, given the other unrelated components to this book, it ends up being just another side quest that confuses more than enlightens.
IMO, this book would have been better told as different stories. They were all interesting in their own way, but really didn't work as a book crammed together with disparate elements. It felt like the author had a lot to say and each component was important to him, but I was lost about what the point was. A book just about Abraham (the grandfather's cousin) would have been great, he seemed like an interesting character and he had a whole story to be told. The way this part took over the rest of the book was really uncomfortable for me, sort of like the author adopted this other person to fill in his book that was otherwise not a full story.
So, the author talked a lot about how he went about things the wrong way, was dishonest with some people, including family and the Polish legal system. At some point, this started to feel like he wrote this book as his own way of explaining his motivation for things. It didn't leave me particularly convinced. Especially considering
All that said, there were some very interesting parts to the book. The writing is often quite good and the author is very insightful in many ways. I think this could have used some real editing to give it a better structure and stay on point a bit better.
In the epilogue the author says he considered writing this as a fictional story, but chose to go memoir instead. Then he tells a story about meeting up with an American also seeking his family's lost property. It's a whole tale,
April 12, 2021
I decided to try a non-fiction book for a change, but I kind of cheated, as this one was marketed as "a non-fiction book that reads like fiction," and that was true! The author, Menachem Kaiser, details his personal search to find his grandfather's lost apartment building, located in Poland, that was taken over during World War II. Menachem knows very little about his grandfather, and nearly all other members of his extended family perished in concentration camps.
Menacham learns about secret Nazi tunnels that were built during the war to store plundered treasure stolen from Jewish families, and completely by surprise learns that the authoritative narrative on the building of these tunnels was written by a man with his same last name -- who turns out to be his grandfather's cousin, Abraham. Abraham's memoir was written from scraps of bags that he buried in the latrines of the concentration camps he lived in, then later retrieved. It is not unlike other memoirs of concentration camp survivors, except that this book gives details about the tunnels which draw treasure seekers from around the world. Through this unexpected connection, Menachem finds some living family members he did not know about (Abraham's descendants).
Menachem hires a lawyer he nicknames "The Killer" to help him re-gain his family's Polish property, but technical issues hinder this process, and as of the writing of the novel, having his clearly deceased relatives (who died in the camps) declared dead has still not been accomplished, an important step to claiming the building. Menachem wrestles with his motives and rights, his family's history and losses, and contradictory worldviews and attitudes toward the Holocaust. His journey of discovery is one I couldn't put down!
Menacham learns about secret Nazi tunnels that were built during the war to store plundered treasure stolen from Jewish families, and completely by surprise learns that the authoritative narrative on the building of these tunnels was written by a man with his same last name -- who turns out to be his grandfather's cousin, Abraham. Abraham's memoir was written from scraps of bags that he buried in the latrines of the concentration camps he lived in, then later retrieved. It is not unlike other memoirs of concentration camp survivors, except that this book gives details about the tunnels which draw treasure seekers from around the world. Through this unexpected connection, Menachem finds some living family members he did not know about (Abraham's descendants).
Menachem hires a lawyer he nicknames "The Killer" to help him re-gain his family's Polish property, but technical issues hinder this process, and as of the writing of the novel, having his clearly deceased relatives (who died in the camps) declared dead has still not been accomplished, an important step to claiming the building. Menachem wrestles with his motives and rights, his family's history and losses, and contradictory worldviews and attitudes toward the Holocaust. His journey of discovery is one I couldn't put down!
April 21, 2021
I'm sorry to say that I thought this was an awful book. The only reason I stuck through to the end was that the premise and the set up got me curious to find out the outcome. Many times along the way I felt I was coming to the end of my ability to tolerate it and continue but I did make it to the end. In hindsight, I should have stopped.
At least half of the book was stuffing, digressions, off-topic ramblings that had nothing to do with the main story. The author is a master of self-justification, offering rationales and alibis for his questionable attitudes and mistakes in judgement. A bit narcissistic too, perhaps.
In hindsight, this book was a disappointment. His self-analytical essays and explanations may have been interesting for a self-absorbed person to write but they were not interesting to read.
Again, I'm sorry. Some may like it, that's fine. For me, it might have been an interesting book to read had the story developed as the teasers suggested it might. But the story didn't develop that way and at the end I said out loud "What?". For my own detour, I'd like to say that I "read" the audio book version, performed by the author. That can often be a bonus. In this case, Mr. Kaiser's mispronunciation of a surprising number of English words was distracting.
At least half of the book was stuffing, digressions, off-topic ramblings that had nothing to do with the main story. The author is a master of self-justification, offering rationales and alibis for his questionable attitudes and mistakes in judgement. A bit narcissistic too, perhaps.
In hindsight, this book was a disappointment. His self-analytical essays and explanations may have been interesting for a self-absorbed person to write but they were not interesting to read.
Again, I'm sorry. Some may like it, that's fine. For me, it might have been an interesting book to read had the story developed as the teasers suggested it might. But the story didn't develop that way and at the end I said out loud "What?". For my own detour, I'd like to say that I "read" the audio book version, performed by the author. That can often be a bonus. In this case, Mr. Kaiser's mispronunciation of a surprising number of English words was distracting.
June 21, 2021
This is a strange and wonderful book that bucks the trend of “returning to the old country” Holocaust memoirs (he calls them “memory-safari”). Kaiser’s family is mostly inured to his sudden visionquest to reclaim a long-lost piece of property. Instead of moral and historical clarity, Kaiser takes us through the “Oh, yah, of course” of ambiguity. A fantastic trip through Polish bureaucracies and the camps of Nazi treasure hunters; forgotten history and perpetual mystery. Kaiser has astute observations about lots of things, from the meaning of ritual, to the value of misdirection. The perfect Holocaust memoir for millennials. Some zingers: “WWII is psychically a lot easier when it’s about antigravity and time travel than when it’s about gas chambers and stacks of corpses…The Nazis already *feel* surreal. This is fertile ground for conspiracy theories.” Of a busload of Jewish visitors to Silesia: “Poland was less a destination than something to be overcome, an obligation to be fulfilled."
November 14, 2022
#MixedFeelings #NonfictionNovember
Parts of this book, a grandson’s quest to reclaim owned property from his family’s estate in Poland (which was lost to them during the Holocaust) was fascinating and really gripping. The parts of this book about Polish Nazi “treasure” hunters were at first interesting but soon became tiresome. And then at the very end, the author makes another swerve which could have been satisfying but he chooses to leave the reader wondering. Ultimately this book was more disappointing than pleasing. #BorrowNotBuy #MoreMehThanYeah
Parts of this book, a grandson’s quest to reclaim owned property from his family’s estate in Poland (which was lost to them during the Holocaust) was fascinating and really gripping. The parts of this book about Polish Nazi “treasure” hunters were at first interesting but soon became tiresome. And then at the very end, the author makes another swerve which could have been satisfying but he chooses to leave the reader wondering. Ultimately this book was more disappointing than pleasing. #BorrowNotBuy #MoreMehThanYeah
May 20, 2021
Menachem Kaiser has not known any of his familial predecessors beyond his father, but has been brought up on the stories of many of his relatives, including his grandfather, during the Holocaust. He decides to investigate and possibly claim any property or valuables he may discover. He is, however surprised by the hoops he needs to jump through as well as reactions of people who now live near the homes of his ancestors. VERY interesting.
July 14, 2021
This book was surprising in many ways. I expected one thing and got something else, but I’m not mad about it. It goes on little chapter-long tangents about Nazi conspiracy theories, myth making and the limitations of nonfiction, nostalgia and memory. It stopped me in my tracks and made me ponder quite a bit. It’s not really an adventure story; it’s more a memoir of family, but it does have adventure in it.
October 24, 2023
Boeiend (zelf)onderzoek naar familiebanden, herinneringen en de morele dilemma’s die gepaard gaan met het terugvorderen van verloren familiebezit in de vorm van een huis. Geschreven vol ironie en Kaiser spaart zichzelf niet. Aanrader voor iedereen die geen afgerond verhaal zoekt, maar openstaat voor de grilligheid van de geschiedenis en het leven.
January 19, 2022
This book started strong and Kaiser is a good writer. Somewhere around a third into the book we started learning less about his family and more about Nazi tunnels, treasure hunters, and the colorful characters of Poland. When the book returns to its central theme it remains strong.
April 10, 2023
Imagine yourself a person, coming to a foreign country to find, and claim, the house his family owned seventy years ago. His great-grandparents bought this house, or lived in this house, or invested in this house, and then they - and almost all their family - were murdered, and the house taken. New and different people live in this house now, and have lived in this house for the last seventy years. Most of these people have no idea that this house was once owned by people who were murdered, and that it has been taken illegally, plundered; that the apartments they think are theirs are actually not theirs at all, but belong to these other, invisible, unknown people who've never even set eyes on this house until they decided to try and reclaim it.
Who is right, and who is wrong? And how do we even ask this question.
It's funny. In a sense, what Menachem Kaiser had written, unknowingly - and, I'm sure, unintentionally - is the history of the State of Israel, writ small. I suspect he would be surprised, and probably even upset, realizing what he'd done, because I get the feeling that, funnily enough, his opinions about Israel are not exactly those of the average Israeli, but if you think about it, the metaphor holds surprisingly strong.
Here is this house which was definitely our house. Every piece of historical evidence suggests that we have, indeed, lived in this house. Every archaeological dig, every text, every historical conjecture. We did not choose to give up this house; we didn't go to America and try to get a Green Card, or freely migrated to Europe for a cheaper cost of living. We were kicked out of this house in a (yes, the word is fully applicable) Holocaust, millennia ago. And then the nation, communally, decided, to claim the house back.
Except of course there were people living there now. They walked into our empty apartments and put in their furniture and hung their pictures on the walls and didn't really think about the fact that this house was not originally their house, it was someone else's house. And after a couple of generations they couldn't imagine not being in this house, they loved this house, their parents died in this house, their children were born in this house. So of course when, out of the blue, a bunch of foreigners who've never set eyes on the house showed up with documents and evidence that, hey, this was totally their house, things exploded real fast.
There is no right and wrong in this story, that's the problem. There is no clear bad guy. This house definitely belongs to the family of the people who were murdered and robbed of it. This house also belongs to the people who've lived in it all their lives. Neither group wants this other house over there, they want their own house, the one that belongs to them, and immediately, by definition, they are enemies.
One of the most striking paragraphs in this book was the one where the author slowly wakes from moral qualms and attempts at reaching out into anger and disillusioned callousness. At first, he tries to get to know the residents of the house, he feels bad for them, he is afraid of what his rights and his claim will do to them. He is understanding and suave about the bureaucracy. And then the bureaucracy slaps him in the face, again and again, with unreasonable, clearly biased agendas. All he wants is his obviously-dead relatives declared dead. All he wants it for the process to move along objectively. And when the judge refuses to acknowledge that his family is dead, and the regional court won't hear his appeals, then even his enlightened compassion acquires an enemy by the name of Poland. His desire to befriend and know the people living in his(?) house dissolves into lack of interest. He just wants what's his by right.
And of course nobody wants to give it to him, because it's their house now.
That, too, is the story of Israel. It starts with attempts at dialogue and tolerance; misguided, perhaps, sure, and definitely condescending at times, but still. But when the system is rigged against the people, the tolerance quickly morphs into callous disinterest. All people want is for these interlopers to get out of their house.
And there is only one house, and so the story goes on, like this book, entirely unresolved.
Who is right, and who is wrong? And how do we even ask this question.
It's funny. In a sense, what Menachem Kaiser had written, unknowingly - and, I'm sure, unintentionally - is the history of the State of Israel, writ small. I suspect he would be surprised, and probably even upset, realizing what he'd done, because I get the feeling that, funnily enough, his opinions about Israel are not exactly those of the average Israeli, but if you think about it, the metaphor holds surprisingly strong.
Here is this house which was definitely our house. Every piece of historical evidence suggests that we have, indeed, lived in this house. Every archaeological dig, every text, every historical conjecture. We did not choose to give up this house; we didn't go to America and try to get a Green Card, or freely migrated to Europe for a cheaper cost of living. We were kicked out of this house in a (yes, the word is fully applicable) Holocaust, millennia ago. And then the nation, communally, decided, to claim the house back.
Except of course there were people living there now. They walked into our empty apartments and put in their furniture and hung their pictures on the walls and didn't really think about the fact that this house was not originally their house, it was someone else's house. And after a couple of generations they couldn't imagine not being in this house, they loved this house, their parents died in this house, their children were born in this house. So of course when, out of the blue, a bunch of foreigners who've never set eyes on the house showed up with documents and evidence that, hey, this was totally their house, things exploded real fast.
There is no right and wrong in this story, that's the problem. There is no clear bad guy. This house definitely belongs to the family of the people who were murdered and robbed of it. This house also belongs to the people who've lived in it all their lives. Neither group wants this other house over there, they want their own house, the one that belongs to them, and immediately, by definition, they are enemies.
One of the most striking paragraphs in this book was the one where the author slowly wakes from moral qualms and attempts at reaching out into anger and disillusioned callousness. At first, he tries to get to know the residents of the house, he feels bad for them, he is afraid of what his rights and his claim will do to them. He is understanding and suave about the bureaucracy. And then the bureaucracy slaps him in the face, again and again, with unreasonable, clearly biased agendas. All he wants is his obviously-dead relatives declared dead. All he wants it for the process to move along objectively. And when the judge refuses to acknowledge that his family is dead, and the regional court won't hear his appeals, then even his enlightened compassion acquires an enemy by the name of Poland. His desire to befriend and know the people living in his(?) house dissolves into lack of interest. He just wants what's his by right.
And of course nobody wants to give it to him, because it's their house now.
That, too, is the story of Israel. It starts with attempts at dialogue and tolerance; misguided, perhaps, sure, and definitely condescending at times, but still. But when the system is rigged against the people, the tolerance quickly morphs into callous disinterest. All people want is for these interlopers to get out of their house.
And there is only one house, and so the story goes on, like this book, entirely unresolved.
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