Reluctant Return: A Survivor's Journey to an Austrian Town"This beautifully written memoir, which shifts smoothly from past to present as it blends memory and contemporary experience, is a story that will resonate with any sensitive Jew. [The book] intrigues and challenges, transcends the personal and becomes a universal statement." -- Hadassah Magazine "In an astonishing and moving document, Weiss... describes his 1995 return trip to the Austrian hometown from which, as a boy, he fled Nazi persecution in 1938..... [T]his soul-searching odyssey... will reward readers of all faiths." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "A powerful and unusually eloquent memoir of a prominent Austrian Holocaust survivor invited back to face... old ghosts and demons.... An intelligent and profound memoir." -- Kirkus Reviews David Weiss is an eminent biomedical scientist, now living in Israel. But in 1938 he was an 11-year-old boy in Austria who dramatically escaped the Nazis with his family. For some 56 years Weiss held a deep and abiding enmity for everything Austrian and German. Reluctant Return is his account of his emotional return to his hometown of Wiener Neustadt, the remarkable Christian group that brought it about, and the visit's surprising echoes and consequences. |
From inside the book
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... Jews and Christians about the past , the present , and the future . " -CAROL RITTNER , R.S.M. , DISTINGUISHED ... Jewish - Christian relations and the vicissitudes of forgiveness .... An extraordi- nary document by an extraordinary human ...
... ( Jewish literature and culture ) P. ISBN 0-253-33584-1 ( cl : alk . paper ) 1. Weiss , David W. , date . 2. Jews - Austria - Wiener Neustadt - Biography . 3. Holocaust , Jewish ( 1939-1945 ) -Austria - Wiener Neustadt - Personal ...
... Jews . When it was released , it became the Holocaust . Holocaust survivor ... that usually connotes the few who lived through the death camps . My family and I were more fortunate . We got out , by a slim margin , before the transports ...
... Jewish religious custom . They do know something , however , of the history of the Jews , and especially of those periods in which Jewish and Christian experience have inter- sected . During the meal and for hours thereafter , they ...
... Jews , Christians have forced God to turn his face away . His countenance will not again illuminate the Chris- tian world until amends are made to his chosen people . The Eiwens have pledged themselves to a specific task , to restore ...
Contents
1 | |
4 | |
Ulis Visions | 8 |
Return? Nunc Mas | 12 |
Guardian Angel as Starshina | 19 |
Roots and Specters | 25 |
The Tactics of Remembrance | 33 |
Encounter at the Holyland | 39 |
Wiener Neustadt March 1938 and Escape | 68 |
Berkeley to Jerusalem | 86 |
Pater Johannes Vrbecky | 96 |
Hillel and Yair Sign On | 102 |
Wiener Neustadt May 1995 | 110 |
What the Pastor of Ichthys Has Caught in His Net | 181 |
When One Stands Face to Face | 188 |
A Thousand Years in a BloodStained Land | 63 |