“Joshua and Isadora: A True Tale of Loss and Love in the Holocaust,” by Michael Benanav. The Lyons Press. 2008. 258 pp. $24.95.by Dr. Arthur Steinberg
For the Salisbury Post
Author Michael Benanav describes his soul-searching to understand the Holocaust and his grandparents’ lives in “Joshua and Isadora.” Unanswered questions consume his mind because of the different European cultures in his American home.
His mystification develops because his family had been tolerated by most European states until the rise of Hitler, without any civil, political or economic restrictions.
Benanav’s quest to satisfy himself takes him through Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and the Ukraine. His analysis of the trials and tribulations of the 1930s and 1940s shows evidence of the time he spent in those countries with the native people.
The story begins with Joshua and Isadora’s flight from anti-Semitic central Europe, glossed by German efforts to eliminate Jewry. Romania, the former Axis power, is severe in its anti-Semitic policies, compelling the Jewish agency to move Jews from the country as soon as possible. When Jews learned of the Holocaust, they did not believe such a maniacal policy could be launched.
The couple end up on a tramp steamer filled with passengers dreaming of a new life in the British mandate, Palestine.
Because of his skill, Joshua, from Czechoslovakia, is forced into a Hungarian labor brigade destined for Auschwitz. He is charged with the care of passengers on the Toros. He meets Isadora by accident on the ship, which is disguised as a Red Cross vessel, hoping to evade the Germans.
Benanav pieces together the strands of a story describing hate and intolerance, along with redemption.
He goes to Uzhgorod, in southwest Ukraine, where he sees few Jewish residents. He meets a member of the Jewish community, who takes him to the neglected Jewish cemetery to look for his grandparents’ graves.
He passes through a Ukrainian customs/border post and makes acquaintance with one of the officials, who invites him for dinner. He is taken to the abandoned Jewish cemetery and then to the synagogue, where he meets local Jews. Most are very old and don’t speak Hebrew.
Benanav discovers that Joshua’s parents, Bela and Berta, were from Uzhgorod, formerly in Hungary, then part of Czechoslovakia. Their village is a small rural town with many nationalities and religions. Joshua becomes so ill as a child that his father, Bela, takes him to Budapest for treatment. The hospital gives the child a special room, since Bela is a highly decorated soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army in World War I. He also got a land grant and was allowed to change his name from Hebrew to Hungarian, an honor not often bestowed on Jews.
Bela dreamed of becoming a rabbi and studied in Austria, but when he returns, he finds his family home destroyed by nationalist and anti-Semitic elements. One of his sisters has immigrated to the United States. He studies law and becomes editor of a Zionist newspaper with socialist leanings, and studies Herzl, founder of Zionism. Bela evolves into a supporter of Zionism.
The angry atmosphere changes him. He wants to immigrate to Palestine, but stays in Europe after meeting Herzl. He teaches Herzl’s views and helps remove Hungarian as the official language, something the Hungarian nationalists remember when Hungary joins Germany.
Bela speaks of Zionism to liberal Jews facing resistance from Orthodox Jews, who believed Israel should not be reborn until the Messiah appears.
Bela remains in his country working on the newspaper and preparing Jews for their new homes. But worldwide depression forces the family to move to a poor section of Bucharest.
As Romanian politics change, Joshua’s parents, Bela and Berta, are swept up in the pogrom in Bucharest; Berta loses her teaching job. Joshua, because of the family’s Hungarian name, is allowed to finish high school and attend trade school. Bela leads Jewish groups along a secret route from Czechoslovakia to Palestine.
When Hungary joins the Axis in 1932, Budapest removes all rights from the Jews, requiring families to prove they are Hungarian. Joshua eventually gets the evidence, but Bela and Berta move to Soviet-controlled Bessarabia. As they advance, Jews are murdered, raped, tortured and deported, forced into marches through brutal weather.
When Isadora’s family arrives in the Ukraine, they are forced to eat straw, causing her mother to develop gangrene. Germans and Romanians discover Isadora is dressed as a boy and molest her, but her mother saves her.
By 1943, a Jewish agency helps Isadora get to an orphanage in Bucharest, where she is temporarily safe.
In 1944, Germans occupied Hungary and Bela and Berta are moved on April 16, 1944. She is gassed just before D-Day and Bela ends up at Mauthausen, where he is beaten to death.
Joshua is luckier than his parents. He and Isadora meet on the train moving them to Palestine through Turkey, Syria and Lebanon. Even though they do not speak the same language, they are married and adopt Hebrew names. They are moved to Atlit, a barbed wire enclosure in Haifa, but are then released, and work hard to re-establish Israel.
The book includes eight pages of photos of Bela, Berta and their families, and Joshua and Isadora and their families.
Benanav is a travel writer for the New York Times.