Who Loves You Like This?

"Edith Bruck tells the story of the 'Lager' with the inherent strength of a wounded animal and in confronting the unbearable sadness of it closes the account and does not surrender to the void. . . Unforgettable testimony." —Primo Levi

Passover, 1944. Edith Bruck's family sits in a darkened kitchen isolated from the other villagers by the black cloth on the window, their poverty, and their Judaism. Her mother explains that the Germans have reached their Hungarian village — that they will soon have to endure more than the cries of "Jewstink" and the deprivations that have been their lot for months. The next morning twelve-year-old Edith is roused by shouts of "Wake up! Outside! Quickly! I give you five minutes, you animals!"

In this memoir, Bruck tells the story of her imprisonment in Auschwitz, Dachau, and Bergen-Belsen. She and her older sister endure almost untellable horrors, and hunger so savage that the author tells of ripping bread from another's teeth. The end of the war brings freedom but little security. With no parents and no home, she moves from country to country, from household to household, and from relationship to relationship. In search of peace she and other family members immigrate to Israel, but even there peace eludes her. Bruck avoids both sentimentality and cynicism; she sees with clarity and passion, learns what she needs to survive, and catalogs other lessons for future use. At the end of Who Loves You Like This, she leaves Israel for Rome, where she lives today. In another country and in a foreign language, she finds the words to describe her life — without homeland, family, or native language.

"With a style both warm and spare, Edith Bruck recreates the hardships of her existence as a Jewish child in Hungary before the Holocaust, the horrors of her time in the camps, and the protracted pain and disorientation of her lonely return to 'normal' life after the war. Her readers will marvel at her ability to perceive good as well as evil in those who preyed upon her. This is a beautiful book." —Susan Zuccotti, author of The Italians and the Holocaust

Edith Bruck has lived in Rome since 1954. She is the author of several novels, collections of short stories, and volumes of poetry. She writes for radio and television and has directed several films. Bruck's works—for which she has won numerous literary prizes—have been translated from the original Italian into Dutch, German, Swedish, and Hungarian.

Who Loves You Like This is Bruck's first work to be translated into English.

"Edith Bruck tells the story of the 'Lager' with the inherent strength of a wounded animal Unforgettable testimony." —Primo Levi

KLIATT

After WW II, Edith Bruck was only 17, and she had lost everything—family, home, friends, health. When she was "liberated," she went to Hungary, and to Romania, and then to Israel, but found herself unhappy everywhere. Unable to sustain a relationship, she was married and divorced three times before she was 20. We now consider it "common knowledge" that people who have come through a terrible experience simply cannot be expected to pick up their lives when that experience is over. They won't be able to resume their "normal" activities as if nothing happened. Post-traumatic stress syndrome is very real. But in 1945, Bruck found that her former neighbors considered her stories just that—stories. She had hoped that Israelis, with their own struggles that threatened their lives, would be able at least to sympathize with her. But they were so different from her! They did such hard physical labor! And they didn't dress very well; their children were raised communally; their food was different. This is a disturbing book, at least in part because its situations are described so graphically. It is raw, gritty, distressing, and to read it is necessary if we want to understand what can happen to ordinary people in an extraordinary time. The translation seems to flow fairly freely, although in spots it is obviously a translation. Bruck finally went to Italy, where she lives today. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2001, Paul Dry Books (117 South 17th St., Suite 1102, Philadelphia, PA 19103), 135p. illus. notes. 22cm. 00-065838., $14.95. Ages 16 to adult. Reviewer: Judith H. Silverman; Chevy Chase, MD , July 2001 (Vol.35, No. 4)

Edith Bruck has lived in Rome since 1954. She is the author of several novels, collections of short stories, and volumes of poetry. She writes for radio and television and has directed several films. Bruck's works—for which she has won numerous literary prizes—have been translated from the original Italian into Dutch, German, Swedish, and Hungarian. Who Loves You Like This is Bruck's first work to be translated into English.