tution; sharing commonalities
from their German-Jewish an-
cestry to their loneliness and
their passion for books (they in-
sist their relationship is platon-
ic). Each has made a career out
of that passion, and their friend-
ship has lasted more than 60
years, documented in this histo-
ry of their lives and friendship.
Nazi Gold: The Full Story Of
The Fifty-Five Year Swiss-
Nazi Conspiracy To Steal Bil-
lions From Europe's Jews
And Holocaust Survivors
By Tom Bower; HarperCollins;
$25.
This illustrated companion to
filmmaker Bower's documentary
of the same title is an assem-
blage of a blow-by-blow chronol-
ogy of Swiss evasions, past and
present.
The Kosher Companion: A
Guide To Food, Cooking,
Shopping And Services
By Trudy Garfunkel;
Birch Lane Press;
$18.95.
The first consumer
guide to the ever-
growing world of
kosher food and
kosher products. The
guide explains the
origin and meaning
of kosher dietary
laws, how to identify
symbols, buy kosher
meats and poultry,
how to identify
kosher products for
vegetarians, people
with allergies and
more.
The Melting Pot: The Forma-
five Years, 1907-1914
By Charles Hamm; Oxford Uni-
versity Press; $35.
Musicologist
Hamm analyzes
the works of
Berlin: 190 pub-
lished songs and
106 unpublished.
Berlin, who died in
1989 at age 101,
most likely did not
give as much criti-
cal thought to his
work as does
Hamm, but it is in-
teresting nonethe-
less.
A Gum K TO Pawn,
COOKING . ancleriNti,
AND KE.VICKY
Irving Berlin: Songs From
To.",
OA.PUSKV,
Songs Of Gener-
ations: New Pearls Of Yid-
dish Song
By Eleanor Chana and Joseph
'After'
By Melvin Jules Bukiet; St. Martin's Press; $24.95.
.
0
ver the past half-century,
Theodor Adorno's famous
dictum that "there can be
no poetry after Auschwitz"
has been gradually rebutted by
writers such as Primo Levi, Paul
Celan and Aharon Appelfeld.
They have shaped the horror of
the Holocaust into memoir, po-
etry and fiction, successfully
linking its singularity to human
experience. In doing so, these
writers have given the Holocaust
literary depth and scope.
A second generation of writ-
ers — children of the survivors
— is similarly contradicting
Adorno's assertion in their own
post-modern literature.
Melvin Jules Bukiet is one
such writer. The son of Holo-
caust survivors, Bukiet has writ-
ten a darkly comic novel — a
picaresque romp though post-
war Germany, a wild and wool-
ly place waiting to be organized
by the Marshall Plan.
After, Bukiet's first novel fol-
lowing two short story collec-
tions, takes place during "the
two years in Europe from May
1945 to 1947 ... a blink in the
waiting room for the next stage
on some imponderable journey:
destination Palestine, Australia,
America, anyplace."
Judith Bolton-Fasman is a
Baltimore-based freelance
writer.
The novel centers on the black delegation tours Isaac's camp,
market activities of 20-year-old he aggravates them with his re-
Isaac Kaufman, a survivor of the visionism. A visitor asks about
Aspenfeld concentration camp the ovens and Isaac says "Bread
— a yeshiva boy forever trans- today." He describes the Proto-
formed and hardened by his ex- cols of the Elders of Zion, a vir-
periences.
ulently anti-Semitic tract
Isaac assembles an amiable alleging an international Jew-
band of rogues, including Mar- ish conspiracy to take over the
cus Morgenstern, a Dachau sur- world, as "an exemplary text,
vivor and erstwhile dentist, who something to aspire to, some-
approaches his forgeries as se- thing to learn from."
Throughout the novel Isaac is
riously as an artist. Marcus'
portfolio includes papers for dis- both hero and villain, giving him
placed persons, passports and a Shindler-like aura. Despite his
less admirable qualities,
DPIDs — dead persons'
there is something
identifications. Isaac and
REVIEW
memorable and even
his comrades convince
exemplary about him
gullible American soldiers
that the latter are necessary in that gives After a unique verac-
order to bury the dead properly. ity.
In the end, Isaac and his mot-
One of the more inspired as-
pects of the book is Bukiet's ley crew scheme to "liberate" a
skewering of stereotypes. Every- mound of gold forged from the
one is culpable in this period of fillings of dead Jews that is un-
limbo, including inept Jewish der American guard in one of the
agencies which limp into post- concentration camps. It's an in-
war Europe as a "Jewish army tricate plan that veers between
of do-gooders." Even when the absurdity and genius — one that
well-meaning British army im- Bukiet astonishingly caps with
ports a Passover seder, the camp a poignant ending: Jewish sen-
inmates rebuffthe effort and de- sibilities prevail.
And they also prevail in this
mand pork and bread instead.
Bukiet treads on dangerous arresting book — a work that
ground when portraying Jewish merges the memory of the Holo-
characters: One wrong move and caust and the legacy of its sur-
they could become hackneyed vivors into the art that inevitably
Shylocks. But skill and care pre- must be created after Auschwitz.
vail, especially in his depiction
— Judith Bolton-Fasman
of Isaac. When a self-important
Mlotek; Workmen's Circle;
$19.95.
An anthology of 125 Yiddish
songs that were either never be-
fore printed or appeared in rare
and inaccessible publications by
the celebrated columnists of The
Forward's "Pearls of Yiddish Po-
etry." To order, call (800) 922-
2558, Ext. 285.
Handsome Is: Adventures
With Saul Bellow: A Memoir
By Harriet Wasserman; Fromm
International; $23.95.
For 25 years, Wasserman was
Nobel laureate Saul Bellow's
literary agent, his first reader,
typist and, eventually, his com-
petition: Last year, Bellow left
Wasserman to sign up with her
rival, Andrew Wylie. Part biog-
raphy, part purging, the book has
an interesting tone.
The Neppi Modona Diaries:
Reading Jewish Survival
Through My Italian Family
By Kate Cohen; University Press
of New England.
Third-generation survivor Co-
hen examines the experiences of
her Jewish-Italian family, the
Neppi Modonas, in Fascist Italy.
Using both diaries and inter-
views, Cohen tells the story of the
Holocaust in Italy through one
single, unheroic family, reminis-
cent of the film The Garden of the
Finzi-Continis.
Taking Root: The Origins Of
The Canadian Jewish Com-
munity
By Gerald Tulchinsky; General
Distribution Services; $19.95.
One of the oldest ethnic groups
in Canada, the history of the Jew-
ish community in Canada is
chronicled from the 1760s to the
end of World War I. Look for Vol-
ume II of this multi-volume work,
Branching Out, to be published
in the fall of 1997.
Lair: German Resistance To
Hitler
By Theodore S. Hamerow; Belk-
nap /Harvard University; $29.95.
Professor emeritus of history
at the University of Wisconsin,
Hamerow dissects the small band
of resisters in Germany and their
attempt to assassinate Hitler in
East Prussia. Their motives and
personalities are examined.
A Tale Of Two Continents: A
Physicists Life In A Turbulent
World
By Abraham Pais; Princeton Uni-
versity Press; $35.
The Dutch-Jewish physicist
tells the riveting story of his strug-
gles to study physics while in hid-
ing in Amsterdam, against the
enormous backdrop of European
and American 20th-century his-
tory.
The Twisted Muse: Musicians
And Their Music In The Third
Reich
By Michael Kater; Oxford Uni-
versity Press; $35.
Kater studies the influence of
the Nazis over whether or not, if
one was a musician in Germany
or Austria, one would be em-
ployed, according to Hitler's tastes
and whether that musician be-
came a member of the Nazi Par-
ty.
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
By Alan Jefferson; Northeastern
University Press; $29.95.
Jefferson explores the German
soprano's denial, at first, of her
involvement in the Naii Party,
and ultimately, her admission of
it in 1983, excusing her involve-
ment with the statement, "Vissi
d'arte (I lived for art)."
NEW IN
PAPERBACK
Ben-Gurion And The Holo-
caust
By Shabtai Teveth; Harcourt
Brace & Co.; $30.
Israeli historian, journalist and
Ben-Gurion biographer, Teveth
has given his new biography of
Ben-Gurion a self-proclaimed
"pro-Ben-Gurion voice in the
politicized debate on Jewish res-
cue efforts during the Holocaust."
Discussed is the accusation that
Ben-Gurion. and his followers
were unwilling to transfer ener-
gies from building a Jewish state
in Palestine to saving Jewish
lives in Europe.
The Statement
By Brian Moore; William Abra-
hams /Plume; $11.95.
Irish-born Moore tells the fic-
tional story of a Frenchman who,
involved with the Vichy govern-
ment and the murder of Jews
during World War II, has evad-
ed justice for decades. The psy-
chological thriller, based on the
real-life flight of Paul Touvier, re-
flects the moral ambivalence of
both French politicians and the
Roman Catholic Church.
On The Road To The Wolf's
—Compiled by Lynne Konstantin