You wouldn’t expect a novel titled “Our Holocaust” (Toby, 350 pages, $24.95) — about a family so damaged by history that they start inventing relatives to fill in for their dead — to be laugh-out-loud funny.
Yet in its loving, sunny opening section, this first novel by Israeli writer Amir Gutfreund is a playful study of what it’s like for two youngsters to grow up among an eccentric collection of elderly Holocaust survivors in a sleepy suburb of Haifa in the 1960s and ’70s.
Amir and Effi are “enjoying a wonderful childhood in the shadow of their (elders’) terrors,” thanks in part to their parents’ flexible “Law of Compression” whereby any suitable neighbor can become a family relation.
“Our greatest need was for grandfathers,” narrator Amir explains “and so we … gathered as many of them as we could.”
There’s miserly Grandpa Lolek, whose ability “to catch colds in tandem with us enabled him to use our cough syrup and conserve his own.” There’s Grandpa Yosef, “champion of the needy, always helping, rescuing, supporting.”
In the book’s first 180 pages, as we meet more and more of these characters, we fall deeper and deeper into Amir and Effi’s game of trying to learn their “family” history. Told repeatedly that they aren’t “Old Enough,” they grow ruthless, rifling through neighbors’ belongings, using homework assignments as an excuse to ask questions.
When finally they are “Old Enough,” the novel becomes a strange, astonishing and terrifying headlong dive into the world of the Holocaust.
Gutfreund’s writing is brilliant, his teasing narrative mesmerizing and the thought behind it subtle and extraordinarily limber in its shadings of Jewish life under the Nazis. This is a powerhouse accomplishment rivaling Gunter Grass’ “The Tin Drum.”
![Volunteers who have been providing care packages and assisting migrants off of buses and onto trains at Wilmette’s Metra Station urged the Wilmette Village Board to not follow neighboring communities by adopting a busing ordinance during Wednesday night’s meeting. Despite concerns, trustees voted unanimously to limit unscheduled bus drop-offs to weekdays between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Village Manager Michael Braiman, who told Pioneer Press in early January the village had no plans to move forward with busing ordinances, said increased late-night drop-offs have begun to cause concern. According to the village, 68 buses with approximately 2,700 people have arrived […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PPN-L-WLM-busingordinance-050224-01.jpg?w=467 "Volunteers who have been providing care packages and assisting migrants off of buses and onto trains at Wilmette’s Metra Station urged the Wilmette Village Board to not follow neighboring communities by adopting a busing ordinance during Wednesday night’s meeting. Despite concerns, trustees voted unanimously to limit unscheduled bus drop-offs to weekdays between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Village Manager Michael Braiman, who told Pioneer Press in early January the village had no plans to move forward with busing ordinances, said increased late-night drop-offs have begun to cause concern. According to the village, 68 buses with approximately 2,700 people have arrived […]")
