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"Fascinating . . . A tragic saga, but at the same time it often reads like a thriller filled with acts of extraordinary courage, descriptions of dangerous journeys and a series of secret identities."--Chicago Tribune "To this day, I don't even know what my mother's real name is." Helen Fremont was raised as a Roman Catholic. It wasn't until she was an adult, practicing law in Boston, that she discovered her parents were Jewish--Holocaust survivors living invented lives. Not even their names were their own. In this powerful memoir, Helen Fremont delves into the secrets that held her family in a bond of silence for more than four decades, recounting with heartbreaking clarity a remarkable tale of survival, as vivid as fiction but with the resonance of truth. Driven to uncover their roots, Fremont and her sister pieced together an astonishing story: of Siberian Gulags and Italian royalty, of concentration camps and buried lives. After Long Silence is about the devastating price of hiding the truth; about families; about the steps we take, foolish or wise, to protect ourselves and our loved ones. No one who reads this book can be unmoved, or fail to understand the seductive, damaging power of secrets. Praise for After Long Silence "Poignant . . . affecting . . . part detective story, part literary memoir, part imagined past."--The New York Times Book Review "Riveting . . . painfully authentic . . . a poignant memoir, a labor of love for the parents she never really knew."--The Boston Globe "Mesmerizing . . . Fremont has accomplished something that seems close to impossible. She has made a fresh and worthy contribution to the vast literature of the Holocaust."--The Washington Post Book World… (more)
User reviews
Reading this memoir was very real and offered great insight into the war years from people who experienced the war in unimaginable ways.
very very interesting.
The word “Genealogy” is seldom mentioned in this book, but the story is full of the search and conquer that all family historians experience. Helen Fremont’s world blooms with answers she is only able to acquire through typical research methods that seem common to most genealogists. The following excerpt explains beautifully her discovery .
“Families are intricate, multi-headed creatures, moving in many directions at once but perhaps with an internal logic. My family is greater than just my parents. My family extends backward in time and space. I want to put them on record, however imperfectly – I want them to be seen and heard. And strangely enough, on the page I begin to recognize myself in my parents – a gesture here, a question there. My attachment to them grows stronger with each sentence that arranges itself before me. Perhaps this is the ultimate irony of my family.”
There are many concepts that may be hard to digest that are incorporated in this story. Not only are detailed accounts of surviving through World War II explored and explained, but homosexuality and dysfunctional families are also introduced.
I honestly found the writing style deplorable at times. If you are looking for a true story based on genealogical research, or if you have an interest in the struggles that were necessary to survive World War II as a Jew, you will find “After Long Silence” a thought provoking and motivating book.