The Scent of Snowflowers

Fülszöveg

IT WAS 1943 and the war in Europe had all but bypassed Hungary. The effects of the war were felt, to be sure: aU able-bodied males over 18 years of age had been drafted into slave-labor camps; food and fuel supplies were short; and for the first time in their lives, Jewish women went out to work. But for the most part, life went on in Budapest as it always had and the loyal Jewish citizens remained blissfully - determinedly - ignorant of the holocaust that raged on all sides.
Rivka Leah was little more than a child
when she married Jacob Klein that spring, en^
and her childlike innocence is agoniz- he would mode
ingly apparent. From the remote city of Smwflowers. H
Szombathely she is transported to the recreates the te.
. . . 1 , tional and phys
capital where the newlyweds settle mto the brief mome
their own apartment and are befriended by era of our recen
their Jewish next-door neighbors. Despite Hu-ough Mrs. \
the food rationing and black marketeering nesses the trans... Tovább

Fülszöveg

IT WAS 1943 and the war in Europe had all but bypassed Hungary. The effects of the war were felt, to be sure: aU able-bodied males over 18 years of age had been drafted into slave-labor camps; food and fuel supplies were short; and for the first time in their lives, Jewish women went out to work. But for the most part, life went on in Budapest as it always had and the loyal Jewish citizens remained blissfully - determinedly - ignorant of the holocaust that raged on all sides.
Rivka Leah was little more than a child
when she married Jacob Klein that spring, en^
and her childlike innocence is agoniz- he would mode
ingly apparent. From the remote city of Smwflowers. H
Szombathely she is transported to the recreates the te.
. . . 1 , tional and phys
capital where the newlyweds settle mto the brief mome
their own apartment and are befriended by era of our recen
their Jewish next-door neighbors. Despite Hu-ough Mrs. \
the food rationing and black marketeering nesses the trans
and the need for the draft-evading Jacob fr'®"«^®
. , .,, c 1 1 ¦ • hate-driven em
to remain hidden from the authorities, meaning of the
Rivka Leah transforms their home into a - that rare intre
miniature Gan Eden. All winter long, she rescue ajew.
busies herself with learning to be a proper More than a chi
balabusta. Her joy at the prospect of moth- testimony to th
erhood knows no bounds - untU the war at ^^^'sityT*
last reaches her doorstep.
"If an author wished to produce the most vivid and engrossing novel on this period, he would model his work on The Scent of Sm-wflowers. This wartime autobiography recreates the terrors, the hopes, the emotional and physical upheavals, and even the brief moments of joy in that devasting era of our recent past.
Hirough Mrs. Klein's eyes, the reader witnesses the transformation of yesterday's dear friends and neighbors into today's hate-driven enemies, and learns the true. meaning of the term "Righteous Gentile" - that rare intrepid being who risks all to
rescue aJew.
More than a chronicle of survival, it is a testimony to the power of faith to sustain the believer in the face of overwhelming adversity."
Hanoch Teller
It soon becomes clear that the flower of Hungarian Jewry is destined to be trampled beneath the ruthless Nazi boot, and the spring for which Rivka Leah had yearned v«ll be singularly lacking in fragrance.
The author has written a stirring World War II memoir that electrifies the reader with its powerfiil prose and engrossing narrative. The Scent of Snowjiowers is a superb tribute to the Klein s unflagging faith and fortitude, and to the valor of Karoly Bitter, the "Righteous Gentile" who was their savior. Vissza