Rating: 
Summary: compelling, provocative and deeply moving Holocaust memoir
Review: "Motherland," Fern Schumer Capman's extraordinary memoir of her mother's pre and post-Holocaust experiences, sheds an important light on a special type of victim -- the escapee. The author's mother, Edith Westerfeld, was but twelve when her parents, succesful and seemingly honored German citizens of the small, rural town of Stockstadt, sent her to America. This abrupt removal, one which was depicted with incredible emotional detail by Capman, had catastrophic impact on the child Edith, a corrosive and numbing sense of shame and guilt which lasted a lifetime until a heroic decision by Edith to return to Germany in 1990 permitted her to understand her assiduously barricaded childhood, the town which was her motherland, and the one loving figure who emerges, nearly fifty years after the Holocaust, as the genuine heroine of the memoir. Chapman poses no easy questions in this painful memoir; her answers and observations, though steeped with hope and a yearning for both roots and family coherence, resound with the horrors of the Holocaust as manifested through her mother.Chapman, in graceful language, describes her mother as an "escapee," and the author postulates that escapees may have a more profound burden than actual survivors. Edith's life is suffused with guilt and the horrific burden of denying memory. "When she was only twelve, she lost everything but life itself: her home, her family, her language, her loyalties, her identity...Like a member of an endangered species ripped from its habitat to avoid certain extinction, she was left alone to bear her imprisoning memory, the unresolvable grief, and the full pain of surviving. The author is fully aware of the unique burdens this has placed on her. Using the metaphor of Russian Matrushka dolls, Edith had lost the larger doll (her mother); for years she was alone, but when Fern was born, once again there were two dolls. But "the relative sizes were reversed -- the daughter held and protected the mother. I became her mother because she needed one more than I did." Fern attains maturity in a household cut off from its own history; she becomes the means to "restoration, restitution, resurrection. I am a replacement for her lost family." Fern and Edith's journey to Germany in 1990 brings the latter face to face with her past and the former face to face with her mother. A class reunion, stilted and nerve-wracking, brings little comfort to Edith, and a profoundly shaken and guilt-racked man eventually provides companionship and an inkling to the ease at which the "good Germans" of Stockstadt became active participants or silent collaborators with the Nazis. It is Edith's former caretaker, Mina, however, who emerges as the luminescent figure in this memoir. The product of a poor family, Mina attained employment as a caretaker-companion to the Westerfeld family and quickly forged a loving relationship with Edith. Now shunned by her former community and living in a dilapidated remote rural home, Mina's life is consumed with memory. She exists as a negative image of Edith. The two are fused in their polarities. While Edith cannot bear to learn of the past, Mina cannot let it go. While Edith has repressed all memory of her pre-Holocaust life and has continued to live, Mina covets her hoard of the truth and resents anyone who would seek to pacifiy the present at the cost of washing away the horrific complicities of the past. You need to understand that Mina is a moral giant. She continuously, at great personal risk, refused to capitulate to Nazi aggression against the Westerfelds specifically or Jews generally. As she eloquently and passionately proclaims in 1938, "I will never howl with those wolves." Fern, deeply struck by this simple, pure devotion to justice, inquires as to how and why Mina never relinquished her dedication to principle. Mina shrugs off any suggestion that she is different than any other German, "You cannot behave like this to another man. You just can't." And, so, Mina is filled with a quiet rage against the quiescent, stable people of Stockstadt, some fifty years later. When her beloved Edith quietly suggests she let the past go, Mina recounts, with excruciating detail, the damage and depradations the Nazis and the town deliberately enacted on her, up to and including refusing her permission to marry. "If you were here and saw what they did, you would be less forgiving." It is important to emphasize that this memoir is not about forgivenss as much as it is about understanding, and how understanding can ease the anguish of a submerged past and provide the possibilities for a genuine link between mother and daughter. Edith eventually confronts her guilt; she finally is able to comprehend, from an adult point of view, what shattered her heart as a twelve year old. "If my mother had been a survivor, maybe she would be grateful, and could have felt each day as a gift, every year as a mission. But as an escapee, she feels she doesn't deserve to live. For that matter, she's not sure she wants to...not without her parents." The moral and personal epiphanies in this magnificent memoir are hard earned and soaked with tears. Fern Schumer Chapman does not dare generalize from her mother's experiences or pontificate about the value of forgiving and forgetting, of getting on with life, or putting the past in its proper place. To both Edith and Fern, the past is too profound, too precious, too precarious. Yet, by memoir's end, they and we realized that without the past, there is no hope for the future.
Rating:
Summary: compelling, provocative and deeply moving Holocaust memoir
Review: "Motherland," Fern Schumer Capman's extraordinary memoir of her mother's pre and post-Holocaust experiences, sheds an important light on a special type of victim -- the escapee. The author's mother, Edith Westerfeld, was but twelve when her parents, succesful and seemingly honored German citizens of the small, rural town of Stockstadt, sent her to America. This abrupt removal, one which was depicted with incredible emotional detail by Capman, had catastrophic impact on the child Edith, a corrosive and numbing sense of shame and guilt which lasted a lifetime until a heroic decision by Edith to return to Germany in 1990 permitted her to understand her assiduously barricaded childhood, the town which was her motherland, and the one loving figure who emerges, nearly fifty years after the Holocaust, as the genuine heroine of the memoir. Chapman poses no easy questions in this painful memoir; her answers and observations, though steeped with hope and a yearning for both roots and family coherence, resound with the horrors of the Holocaust as manifested through her mother. Chapman, in graceful language, describes her mother as an "escapee," and the author postulates that escapees may have a more profound burden than actual survivors. Edith's life is suffused with guilt and the horrific burden of denying memory. "When she was only twelve, she lost everything but life itself: her home, her family, her language, her loyalties, her identity...Like a member of an endangered species ripped from its habitat to avoid certain extinction, she was left alone to bear her imprisoning memory, the unresolvable grief, and the full pain of surviving. The author is fully aware of the unique burdens this has placed on her. Using the metaphor of Russian Matrushka dolls, Edith had lost the larger doll (her mother); for years she was alone, but when Fern was born, once again there were two dolls. But "the relative sizes were reversed -- the daughter held and protected the mother. I became her mother because she needed one more than I did." Fern attains maturity in a household cut off from its own history; she becomes the means to "restoration, restitution, resurrection. I am a replacement for her lost family." Fern and Edith's journey to Germany in 1990 brings the latter face to face with her past and the former face to face with her mother. A class reunion, stilted and nerve-wracking, brings little comfort to Edith, and a profoundly shaken and guilt-racked man eventually provides companionship and an inkling to the ease at which the "good Germans" of Stockstadt became active participants or silent collaborators with the Nazis. It is Edith's former caretaker, Mina, however, who emerges as the luminescent figure in this memoir. The product of a poor family, Mina attained employment as a caretaker-companion to the Westerfeld family and quickly forged a loving relationship with Edith. Now shunned by her former community and living in a dilapidated remote rural home, Mina's life is consumed with memory. She exists as a negative image of Edith. The two are fused in their polarities. While Edith cannot bear to learn of the past, Mina cannot let it go. While Edith has repressed all memory of her pre-Holocaust life and has continued to live, Mina covets her hoard of the truth and resents anyone who would seek to pacifiy the present at the cost of washing away the horrific complicities of the past. You need to understand that Mina is a moral giant. She continuously, at great personal risk, refused to capitulate to Nazi aggression against the Westerfelds specifically or Jews generally. As she eloquently and passionately proclaims in 1938, "I will never howl with those wolves." Fern, deeply struck by this simple, pure devotion to justice, inquires as to how and why Mina never relinquished her dedication to principle. Mina shrugs off any suggestion that she is different than any other German, "You cannot behave like this to another man. You just can't." And, so, Mina is filled with a quiet rage against the quiescent, stable people of Stockstadt, some fifty years later. When her beloved Edith quietly suggests she let the past go, Mina recounts, with excruciating detail, the damage and depradations the Nazis and the town deliberately enacted on her, up to and including refusing her permission to marry. "If you were here and saw what they did, you would be less forgiving." It is important to emphasize that this memoir is not about forgivenss as much as it is about understanding, and how understanding can ease the anguish of a submerged past and provide the possibilities for a genuine link between mother and daughter. Edith eventually confronts her guilt; she finally is able to comprehend, from an adult point of view, what shattered her heart as a twelve year old. "If my mother had been a survivor, maybe she would be grateful, and could have felt each day as a gift, every year as a mission. But as an escapee, she feels she doesn't deserve to live. For that matter, she's not sure she wants to...not without her parents." The moral and personal epiphanies in this magnificent memoir are hard earned and soaked with tears. Fern Schumer Chapman does not dare generalize from her mother's experiences or pontificate about the value of forgiving and forgetting, of getting on with life, or putting the past in its proper place. To both Edith and Fern, the past is too profound, too precious, too precarious. Yet, by memoir's end, they and we realized that without the past, there is no hope for the future.
Rating:
Summary: Praise for Motherland by Chapman
Review: A Deeply moving and insightful memoir about mother/daughter relations, the effects of trauma on the human spirit, and the choices we all make that change our lives. Beautiful literary style with a stunning use of metaphors.
Rating:
Summary: Tears through the years
Review: A most beautiful book. A gift from all children to their parents, and to our children. A must read for all. From the sadness, we are re-borne, knowing we must survive. That this may never happen, ever again. We see not only the Jewish sorrow of the Holocaust, but also the damage done to Germans, and the world. We may not have made the journey in the same ship, but we are in the same boat. God bless you Edith and Fern.
Rating:
Summary: Book Clubs Must Read
Review: A Wonderful Book!
Beautifully written. So much to talk about! A mother daughter story of understanding and forgiveness.
The author, Fern, grew up in a home where the past was not discussed. Not until she was an adult, and pregnant with her third child, was her mother, Edith, willing to discuss her childhood. Fern and her mother travelled back to Germany together to see where Edith grew up, as one of two Jewish families in a small town where her family had lived for over 200 years. Edith's parents sent her out of Germany, to live in safety with relatives in Chicago, just before Kristallnacht.
Whether this was the ultimate act of unselfish parental love, or whether it was cruel makes riveting conversation between Fern and her mother. This book is wonderful for book club discussions.
It is a memoir that reads like fiction.
Beautifully written, a good read, but not difficult.
Many topics to discuss - mother/daughter relationships on many levels, the sacrifices we make for our children, what we pass on to them intentionally and unintentionally. Survivor guilt versus escapee guilt. The burdens - positive and negative- that we carry from our past. Vivid characters, stunning descriptions, can't put it down dialog. I can't wait for her to write another book! I was concerned that it might be holocaust heavy, but it is not.
I have recomended Motherland to readers of all ages and religions, and everyone has loved it. It has quickly become the hot book club book in the Chicago area. So many book clubs around here have discussed it, and are raving about it. Stores can't keep it on the shelves. It appeals to all of us, who are mothers and daughters. Don't miss Motherland as an outstanding book club choice.
Rating:
Summary: Book Clubs Must Read
Review: A Wonderful Book!
Beautifully written. So much to talk about! A mother daughter story of understanding and forgiveness.
The author, Fern, grew up in a home where the past was not discussed. Not until she was an adult, and pregnant with her third child, was her mother, Edith, willing to discuss her childhood. Fern and her mother travelled back to Germany together to see where Edith grew up, as one of two Jewish families in a small town where her family had lived for over 200 years. Edith's parents sent her out of Germany, to live in safety with relatives in Chicago, just before Kristallnacht.
Whether this was the ultimate act of unselfish parental love, or whether it was cruel makes riveting conversation between Fern and her mother. This book is wonderful for book club discussions.
It is a memoir that reads like fiction.
Beautifully written, a good read, but not difficult.
Many topics to discuss - mother/daughter relationships on many levels, the sacrifices we make for our children, what we pass on to them intentionally and unintentionally. Survivor guilt versus escapee guilt. The burdens - positive and negative- that we carry from our past. Vivid characters, stunning descriptions, can't put it down dialog. I can't wait for her to write another book! I was concerned that it might be holocaust heavy, but it is not.
I have recomended Motherland to readers of all ages and religions, and everyone has loved it. It has quickly become the hot book club book in the Chicago area. So many book clubs around here have discussed it, and are raving about it. Stores can't keep it on the shelves. It appeals to all of us, who are mothers and daughters. For background, see the discussion guide, or go to the author's website. Don't miss Motherland as an outstanding book club choice.
Rating:
Summary: Motherland by Fern Chapman
Review: After meeting Fern Chapman at a reading of her book, I purchased the book & read it almost non-stop. I was deeply touched by it, as I was by meeting the author, who is embued with warmth & kindness, which allowed me to share with her, a total stranger then, but no more, some of my profound & deep hurt. Though Fern Chapman & I have written our respective books separately (My book: "Erinnern ist nicht genug, an autobiography" {Remembering is not enough}, published in German by UNRAST Verlag in Muenster, Germany, ISBN 3-928300-86-5), not knowing each other, or about each other, in two instances the author and/or her mother & I used almost identical words. The mother, describing her departure from Germany & separation from her parents, is quoted "...I watched them (her parents) become dots..." In my book I describe my leaving Germany on a Kindertransport (children's transport)& how "...my parents ran along the train as it pulled out of the railroad station in Frankfurt. I watched them get smaller & smaller, & finally they were just two dots & then they were gone...." Elsewhere Chapman writes "...In a way, her parents gave birth twice to the same child..." I wrote "...I did not realize it then, but my parents gave me life a second time by sending me away..." "Motherland" is beautifully written, full of sensitive insights. I hope writing it has helped the author & her mother to reach a new & deeper understanding of each other & of themselves as individuals.
Rating:
Summary: A whole new pespecitve on loss
Review: Chapman's book was like a box of rich chocolates. Each chapter was a rich delicious morsel and I still wanted more. The writing is a blend between high styled journalism and Chapman's incredible ability to ariculate her own personal experiences. While the reading is fast, the rich insights keep tumbling in. In the book, "Motherland", Chapman gives an unusual and intense insight into the importance of our individual histories and the imporance of these histories remaining intact. The repurcussions and diffiuclties encountered by her mother when snatched from her homeland and parents in 1943 are beautifully and painfully described when Chapman and her mother return to Germany for one week in 1992. I read this book while Elian was in the process of being returned to his father and my opinion made a radical 180 degree change. I now understand that Elian has now been "returned" to his father vs. being "stolen" from his Miami relatives.
Rating:
Summary: There's no hardball like mother-daughter hardball
Review: Fern's book is awesome. Motherland is a quick read that brings home the horrors that the holocaust has bestowed on all it's vicims, including those not born till a generation later. I wondered why my own mom is so closed mouthed about her parents and her past. Reading about Fern's family story, and how Fern rose above to find forgiveness for many is truly inspiring. I have renewed respect for the mother-daughter relationship, and feel inspired to work on my own.
Rating: 
Summary: a good book
Review: I enjoyed this book. It was an interesting perspective on a visit to a hometown, and it definitely had its touching moments. I read it a while ago, so I don't remember it that well, but I do know that I thought it was a very well written book. It's not really my type of book.
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