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| This is one of the Silesian mystery tunnels that Menachem Kaiser explored as he researched his book, “Plunder.” (Jason Francisco) |
"De nalatenschap. Een joodse familiegeschiedenis" van Menachem Kaiser neemt je mee naar een Joods Canadese familie, een Poolse speurdersclub in een Nazigangenstelsel, verbijsterende juridische praktijken, de onvoorstelbare Naziterreur in de kampen. En het past allemaal in het eigen verhaal van de schrijver en zijn grootvader en diens neef.
We live with the idea that the Nazis were not only evil — an indisputable truth — but also that they were methodical. That they kept lists of everything, their neat unblotted words describing death, terror, and unimaginable cruelty as if it were a shopping list.
We also expect that most of the Holocaust memoirs we read follow a predictable narrative arc; that survivors somehow overcome their nightmares and lack of living relatives and physical and emotional scars to live a better life in the New World, that their children attain let’s-show-Hitler levels of success, and that their grandchildren can go back to Europe to find their grandparents’ childhood homes and shuls and family graveyards, and somehow make sense of the past. Life, needless to say, rarely is that simple. Nor is memory. “We consecrate, and we plunder.”
That beautifully, skillfully written book, “Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure,” doesn’t fit easily into the template of grandchildren’s Holocaust works, as he points out. It’s a travelogue, a mystery, a meditation, and a surprise.
- Met onderkoelde humor beschrijft Menachem Kaiser zijn zoektocht naar verloren familiebezit Volkskrant
- A Quest to Reclaim a Family Home Unearths a Past Buried by the Holocaust The New York Times
- Menachem Kaiser: ‘Ik kwam niet dichter bij mijn grootvader’ Het Parool
- Dit boek over de omgang met de Holocaust overstijgt alle clichés NRC
