When the World Was Whole Three Centuries - Hardcover

Fenyvesi, Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0330314963 ISBN 13: 9780330314961

Publisher: Pan Books Ltd, 1990

Synopsis

In east central Europe, for centuries, Jews stood as a separate tribe whose members were at once immensely rich and pitifully poor, above all mysterious. Today, in the small villages of Hungary and Transylvania, of Poland and Yugoslavia, there are no more Jews and they remain only as folk memories, the source of superstition. In one of those small villages, located at the end of a road, the author's family first contracted, many centuries ago, to lease land - Jews were not allowed to own land until the mid 19th century - tilling the sandy soil, planting locust trees to prevent the topsoil from blowing away, becoming stewards of the land, and eventually buying titles to sizeable acreage. The first plot of land they acquired was for a cemetery of their own. The book tells the story of the family's enduring love affair with the land, and how the land and a world of custom and devotion, was lost.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

A Washington, D.C., journalist lovingly recreates the villages where his ancestors, who for 400 years were as "rooted in the land of Hungary as an old walnut tree," built up a sizable estate. His stories, passed down in the family, depict a society in which certain Jews became prosperous and respected to the extent that even today many gentile survivors of the Nazis and Communists refer to the "dear old Jews." At his uncle's funeral in the village of Derzs in 1988, local Catholic children read the Kaddish in the family cemetery. When WW I reduced the family's wealth, they moved to a nearby city; in WW II, the author's grandmother and other relatives perished at Auschwitz. Fenyvesi writes with warmth, sympathy, humor--and a few sentimental excesses--about his relatives, native land and the emperor Franz Josef, who had a "tender heart" for the Jews. Photos. 25,000 first printing; author tour.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Fenyvesi, a writer for the U.S. News and World Report, opens his book with the words, "Ever since I remember remembering, I have heard stories about my ancestors . . . ." Remembrance is his theme as he seeks to restore by memory the destroyed world of his Hungarian Jewish ancestors. Chapters alternate between the present--detailing his sojourn back to Hungary--and the past--beautifully wrought stories of his ancestors. As a child, Fenyvesi escaped death in the Holocaust with forged identity papers. As a young man, he grew up in Stalinist Hungary and took part in the uprising of 1956. His ties to Hungary are strong, but stronger still are his ties to his Jewish ancestors. An evocative book by a master storyteller. Highly recommended.
- Paul Kaplan, Highland Park P.L., Ill.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pan Books Ltd
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0330314963
• ISBN 13: 9780330314961
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 200