Description:
Part memoir, part genealogical mystery and part history, this is an absorbing, heartwarming and heartbreaking tale as readers accompany the author on his exploration of the complicated relationship between two Holocaust survivors.
Brief description: Max J. Friedman realized early in life that the world he lived in was very different from what most others his age would ever experience. He was born in Sweden to Sam and Frieda, Polish-Jewish parents who met and married there after their liberation from Bergen-Belsen and then emigrated to the US in 1952. Max and his sister learned very little from their parents about their parents' lives before WWII or what they had gone through during the Holocaust, and much of what they did learn from them, it would turn out, did not really happen. What was real were their parents' years of ghettos, slave labor and concentration camps like Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, which Sam and Frieda endured while suffering the horrific loss of their families: spouses, parents, siblings and children. Max's family experienced the after-effects that flow from parents who have survived such horrors. When it came time to care for their elderly survivor parents, Max and his sister well understood that they too would have to become survivors. This book is the story of this family's journey of discovery, transformation and acceptance. It was a long time coming. After getting a BA from Columbia College and a Master's of Journalism from UC Berkeley, Max spent the next five decades first as a journalist and then in related writing fields, including public television, leading a communications group for a major pharmaceutical company, and operating his own editorial consultancy. He married and has twin sons and two grandchildren. After spending a career discovering and then sharing the stories of so many others, and more recently completing the memoirs of two complex personalities, he found himself reexamining his own past, spurred by a question from his grandson. The result is Painful Joy, an effort to finally uncover the truth of his parents' extraordinary journey of survival and the effects it had on others. Traveling to Poland, Germany, Israel and Sweden, he sought to help restore his parents' humanity by uncovering who they really were, apart from damaged survivors: where they came from, the lives they once led, their lost hopes and dreams. He learned how all that had unraveled, leaving dual legacies of pain and resilience for future generations. This retelling of what he discovered and what remained hidden was more complicated than he could have imagined. It is a story that goes beyond his own family to explore larger questions about the nature of survival, the tricks our memories can play on us, how hate can destroy and how love can restore. In the process he transforms Sam and Frieda, who start out as strangers, into people who merit our attention, empathy and respect.
Review Quotes:
Max Friedman's Painful Joy dutifully fulfills the biblical mandate to honor one's father and mother. Sensitively and lovingly written, compelling and at times poetic, it reminds us all that the tragedy of the Holocaust lies not in grand historical events, political or military, but in the broken lives of real human beings, both those who did not survive and those who did, and, all-too-often, communicated that brokenness to their children and grandchildren. Frieda and Sam Friedman survived, made their way into the world of the foreign land of the United States, birthed two children, and bequeathed to them - and us - the power not only of love despite all, but perseverance and resilience as well. Kol hakavod! [Hebrew for "A job well done!"]
- Rabbi Dr. Steven Leonard Jacobs is Professor of Religious Studies and Emeritus Aronov Endowed Chair of Judaic Studies at The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
Max opens a door for us to enter a shared world; a world touched by his family's pain, longing, love, sorrow and hope. His gentle, respectful and caring writing style will leave a mark upon you after you close the book for the last time - inviting you to open the door again. You will re-open this book!
- Rabbi Steven Silberman, Congregation Ahavas Chesed, Mobile, AL
Painful Joy, A Holocaust Family Memoir is dedicated to and in memory of Salomon and Frieda Friedman, cherished parents of Max. The reader feels the love, appreciation and respect the author holds for his parents as he grapples with the incomprehensible acts of inhumanity they endured and endeavors to understand the indelible mark the Holocaust left upon them and the trauma he inherited through their DNA and as the child of Holocaust survivors. Factual content, precise descriptions of environs, explanations of customs and mores, definitions of non-English words as well as personal musings are beautifully woven within the memoir. Friedman's command of the English language is superb, and the reader will be immersed in the narrative, almost able to utilize one's senses to hear, see, smell and touch that which is described in this well-crafted memoir. The reader becomes acquainted with the richness of his parents' and grandparents' lives and the Jewish communities in which they lived. Information about the villages and cities is presented to the reader through meticulous research, bringing us back as far as the 13th century so that we can understand more fully how these communities evolved. We reflect how pain and hardship define our very being, as does love. Like Salomon and Frieda, we can feel joy after knowing sorrow.
- Millie Jasper is Executive Director, Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center, White Plains, NY