Description:
From the fantasy worlds of childhood games, to merry singing by the River Váh, The Mulberry Tree is a powerful account of how an idyllic life in Northern Czechoslovakia is shattered as the Third Reich sweeps across Europe.
Brief description: Iboja Wandall-Holm is a Danish writer and translator born in 1921 in Czechoslovakia, one of the few democracies arising after World War I from the dissolution of the three European empires: Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary. In 1942, she fled with her younger sister Lila to Hungary to escape deportation to the Nazi death camps. She was caught, but then survived Auschwitz, Birkenau and Ravensbrück. After the war she studied Political Economics in Prague and worked for Czechoslovak Radio there. In 1947 she married a Dane and became a Danish citizen. In 1956 she moved to Copenhagen, where she still lives. As the wife of a United Nations ambassador, she has also lived in Africa, Iran, the USA and Austria.She writes in both Danish and Slovak. In the early 1960s she began publishing poems, short stories, essays and translations from Czech and Slovak literature. Her first collection of verse, Digte, came out in 1965, to be followed by more collections. She joined the Union of Danish Writers and collaborated with Danish Radio. She has also written children's books and collections of songs, translated Slovak fairy tales, as well as Slovak, Czech, Polish, German and Hungarian prose fiction and poetry. In addition, she has written a series of lectures, chronicles and other productions for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation.In 1991 she published her Holocaust memoir, Morbærtræet [The Mulberry Tree] in Danish. It went into a second, expanded edition in 2000 under the title Farvel til århundredet [Farewell to the Century]. In 2003, it was published in her own Slovak translation in Bratislava under the title Zbohom, storočie [Farewell, Century], reprinted in 2016 and 2021 under the original title Morusa.In recognition of her work, Iboja Wandall-Holm is listed in the Blue Book, an encyclopaedia of people who have significantly enhanced the Kingdom of Denmark.
Review Quotes:
"After reading the memoir, you will not want to have lived the author's life, but you will want to have her ability to recall and formulate memories into words. For most of us, memories are only random fragments in the brain. For Iboja Wandall-Holm, they are not." - Martin Ciel
"...it is an ethical illumination of experiences where person and time intersect; a reworking of history where past and present are not closed entities, because life experience is used and respect for the human being prevails. This makes the book beautiful, present and necessary." - Chr. Mailand-Hansen in Informationen
"Her voice is filled with a painful knowledge and yet moving faith in humanity. It is important to listen to, not least at a time when neo-Nazis are trying to whitewash the past and inflame people's xenophobia." - Vibeke Blaksteen in Kristeligt Dagblad
"...a valuable book, a memoir whose literary qualities make it deserve to be called more than just a story...a beautiful picture of a rich life." - Annelise Vestergaard in Jyllands-posten
"I have not read such an impressive book in years. In spite of the horrors experienced in the concentration camps, it is written with humour and love of life..." - Mogens Kofod-Hansen
"...a significant piece of European cultural history." - Ib Falkencrone in Vendsyssel Tidende