La Carte Postale by Anne Berest; Paris, France: Bernard Grasset publisher
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson
MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — This book describes the vicissitudes and eventual fate of the various members of a Jewish family, starting in Russia, then moving to Poland, Lithuania, pre-State Israel and finally France, putting down roots in each place before being forced or feeling impelled to move on.
The postcard of the title is sent to the author’s mother in Paris and bears the names of four members of her family who perished in the Holocaust. Who sent it and why is a mystery. A large part of the book concerns the author’s search, together with her mother, for the source of the postcard and an explanation for its enigmatic content and delivery.
The narrator involves the reader in her search, while at the same time providing long and detailed accounts of life in the various places where family members resided. Thus, for example, we learn about farming methods in Israel when it was still under the British Mandate, the life of prosperous Jewish merchants in Lithuania, and Jewish life in rural Poland. The threat of pogroms and persecution is ever-present in the background, but until the Nazi occupation of France and most of Europe the members of the Rabinowitch family manage to survive and even to prosper.
Most of the events described in the book take place in France, whether in Paris or rural Brittany. Particularly telling is the account of the way the German occupiers gradually close in on the Jewish population, depriving them of their rights and property and eventually deporting them in cattle trains to concentration camps in the east, with the cooperation of the French authorities. All those events are described in harrowing detail.
Nonetheless, one member of the Rabinowitch family, Miryam, the mother of the author, manages to survive in a remote French village. While studying at the Sorbonne in Paris Miryam meets and marries a young man, Vicente Picabia, whose parents are artists and are connected with the artistic milieu of Paris at that time.
Despite all the author’s efforts, she is unable to find out who sent the postcard and why. Only at the very end of the novel, seemingly by chance, the origin of the postcard finally comes to light and the mystery is solved. The postcard serves to give continuity to the narrative while at the same time providing the link for the account of the way France cooperated in depriving the Jewish population of its rights and eventually took part in its annihilation.
The book is well-written, and although now and again I had to look up words in the dictionary (Google Translate), I found it an enjoyable read, despite the somewhat horrendous subject-matter. It is important that this topic continues to be written about and discussed, so that the memory of what happened then is not lost in oblivion.
*
Dorothea Shefer-Vanson is an author and freelance writer based in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Zion, Israel.