Journey to Vaja : reconstructing the world of a Hungarian-Jewish family / Elaine Kalman Naves.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Naves, Elaine Kalman.

Series:

McGill-Queen's studies in ethnic history ; 25.

McGill-Queen's studies in ethnic history ; 25

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Hungary.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945).

Hungary--History.

Hungary.

Physical Description:

xii, 269 p., [16] p. of plates : ill. ; 24 cm.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Montreal ; London : McGill-Queen's University Press, c1996.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Northeastern Hungary was full of places like the village of Vaja, where Jews had farmed for generations. Naves's ancestors had tilled Hungarian soil since the eighteenth century. They had married into similar farming families and maintained a lifestyle at once agricultural, orthodox, and Hungariophile. The Nyirség, a sandy, slightly undulating region wedged between the Great Hungarian Plain and the foothills of the Carpathians, was the centre of their world. But all this changed irrevocably with the holocaust; Naves's generation is the first in two centuries whose roots are severed from the soil that once nurtured them. Naves's quest for her past began with her father, one of the few members of a vast extended family to survive the Nazi death camps. His stories and memories of ancestors were a well-spring from which he drew strength, and they became an obsession for Naves as she was growing up and when she had children of her own. Journey to Vaja is her attempt to record the lives of these ancestors and reclaim their lives as part of her and her children's birthright. It incorporates myths and stories with family letters and detailed archival research to provide an extraordinary look at the landscape of memory and a testament to the redemptive power of love and family.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Author's Note

Part One

Prologue: "No Wide Estates"

Going Back

Yakab's Journey

A Wandering Jew Strikes Root

Finding the Exemplary Wife

Vaja

The Rákóczi Estate

Twelve Pairs of Shoes

Kálmán Came from Kajdanó

Honeymoon in Vaja

"Honour Thy Father and Thy Mother"

The First Lieutenant

Prophecy and Revolution

The Piricse Partners

To Walk Straight

Part Two

The Academy Years

First Loves

Apprenticeship in Varsány

Working Days

Holidays

Lust and Love

Marriage and Liaison

Journey to Vaja

The Liberation of a Magyar Jew

Normality in the Tightening Noose

The Finger of God

"The Greatest and Most Horrible Crime"

Epilogue: Circle of Stories

Glossary

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographies and index.

ISBN:

1-282-85425-9

9786612854255

0-7735-6634-1

OCLC:

929121443