Exploring their history

DEENA LEVENSTEIN

With digital correspondence, documentation and photography, we are quite possibly the last generation that will need to dig deep to find out about those who came before us. There is almost no documentation that would help us know where our ancestors lived and what happened to them. The information is found, if at all, in old, faded photographs, official documents and letters. These supply a few pieces of a puzzle that needs to be finished with imaginary pieces.

There is an uncanny similarity between The Pages in Between: A Holocaust Legacy of Two Families, One Home by Erin Einhorn and I Am My Family, Photographic Memories and Fictions by Rafael Goldchain. Einhorn, a journalist, and Goldchain, a photographer, both embark on utterly different journeys with practically identical goals: to fill in the missing pieces from their families' pasts.

Einhorn's mother survived the Holocaust as a baby, thanks to a Polish woman who was willing to care for her. But after many years of hearing the story, where her mother often repeated, "I was always loved," Einhorn started wondering if the story was too simplistic. She became curious about the many missing details and so decided to go on a trip to Poland to fill in the gaps.

Einhorn, whose book is a first-person account of her experiences, attempts to be open-minded about Poland's embarrassing past. Almost disturbingly open-minded. The Second World War was a terrifying time for the people of Poland and they were in grave danger if found helping save a Jew's life, but Einhorn seems a little too understanding: "And so people like my grandparents, the survivor generation, emerged from the war with a blazing hatred for the Poles who they once had befriended, for their former neighbors who they felt had double-crossed them." Did they only "feel" they were betrayed?

Einhorn also opts to write "Holocaust" throughout the book, with a lower-case "h," even though it is widely accepted that when referring to the Shoah, Holocaust is written with a capital letter. One might wonder what causes the child of a Holocaust survivor to choose to write it this way.

Even so, Einhorn tells the intriguing story of meeting the son of the woman who saved her mother, of finding out there is unfinished business between the families regarding the house where they used to live – and all this with her own difficult personal crises along the way. The book is also a unique opportunity to get a glimpse into the life and people of Poland today.

Goldchain did not travel in order to create I Am My Family. One of the key experiences of this coffee table book is opening it for the first time without knowing what it is. After browsing through the pages, there is an "aha" moment. At that point, most people will probably continue flipping through with piqued interest.

A Canadian photographer, some of Goldchain's family, Polish Jews, moved to South America before the Second World War. Whoever did not, perished in the Holocaust. Almost all of his family's photographs were lost. Feeling the lack of family history, Goldchain decided to use whatever information he had – from knowing some of the people personally and from a few available photographs – to create an imaginary family album, with himself cast as the main character in every single picture. Among others, Goldchain is found in his book as a Yiddishe bubbe, an old man, a young boy and a bride. The photographs are sometimes funny, sometimes spooky and always seem to show the love Goldchain has for his family and heritage.

Both Einhorn and Goldchain's pieces are very obviously labor-intensive. It's fascinating to see how far two people were willing to go, using such different tools of exploration, to better understand from where they have come.

Deena Levenstein is a freelance writer from Toronto, Jerusalem and now Vancouver. Her blog is www.blogmidrash.wordpress.com.

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