2 options
An uncommon friendship : from opposite sides of the Holocaust / Bernat Rosner & Frederic C. Tubach with Sally Patterson Tubach.
Library at the Katz Center - Stacks DS135.H93 R677 2001
Available
LIBRA DS135.H93 R677 2001
Available from offsite location
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Rosner, Bernat, 1932-
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Rosner, Bernat, 1932-.
- Rosner, Bernat.
- Tubach, Frederic C.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust--Hungary--Tab--Biography.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Hungary--Tab--Personal narratives.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945).
- Holocaust survivors.
- Tab (Hungary)--Biography.
- Tab (Hungary).
- World War, 1939-1945--Children--Germany--Biography.
- World War, 1939-1945.
- World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, German.
- California.
- Hungary--Tab.
- Holocaust survivors--California--Biography.
- Germany--Biography.
- Germany.
- California--Biography.
- Genre:
- Personal narratives -- German.
- Biographies.
- Personal narratives.
- Physical Description:
- xiii, 271 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Berkeley : University of California Press, [2001]
- Summary:
- What we don't know about our friends may one day explode in our faces, but what we do know can be a different sort of time bomb. Two men, who meet and become good friends after enjoying successful adult lives in California, have experienced childhoods so tragically opposed that the friends must decide whether to talk about them or not. In 1944, 13-year-old Fritz was almost old enough to join the Hitler Youth in his German village of Kleinheubach. That same year in Tab, Hungary, 12-year-old Bernie was loaded onto a train with the rest of the village's Jewish inhabitants and taken to Auschwitz, where his whole family was murdered. How to bridge the deadly gulf that separated them in their youth, to remove the power of the past to separate them even now, as it separates many others, becomes the focus of their friendship, and together they begin the project of remembering.
- The separate stories of their youth are told in one voice, at Bernat Rosner's request. He is able to retrace his journey into hell, slowly, over many sessions, describing for his friend the "other life" he has resolutely put away until then. Frederic Tubach, who must confront his own years in Nazi Germany as the story unfolds, becomes the narrator of their double memoir. Their decision to open their friendship to the past brings a special poignancy to stories that are all too horrifyingly familiar. Adding a further and fascinating dimension is the counterpoint of their similar village childhoods before the Holocaust and their very different paths to personal rebirth and creative adulthood in America after the war.
- Seldom has a memoir been so much about the present, as we see the authors proving what good will and intelligence can accomplish in the cause of reconciliation. This intimate story of two boys trapped in evil and destructive times, who become men with the freedom to construct their own future, has much to tell us about building bridges in our public as well as our personal lives.
- Contents:
- 1 The Return of the Past 1
- 2 Two European Villages 24
- 3 The Loss of Innocence 63
- 4 The Maelstrom: To Auschwitz and Beyond 82
- 5 Roads West 145
- 6 Careers: An American Story 199
- 7 Germany: Fifty Years Later 233.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-271).
- ISBN:
- 0520225317
- 0520236890
- OCLC:
- 45320477
The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.