Loves of Yulian: Mother and Me, cartea 03

 

This moving third installment of Padowicz's fictionalized memoir relays the plight of his mother and himself as they flee Nazi Poland to Hungary, then to Brazil, where they spend a year awaiting papers for emigration to the U.S. Julian's loves (his affection for his former nanny, his boyish crush on a family friend) form a counterpoint to his mother's lovers, relationships often perplexing to the young boy. Padowicz adopts a leisurely pace in the recreation of a child's pleasures and pains (the equator-crossing initiation, settling into a new school, his stuttering), while the Holocaust hovers, seen primarily through recurring references to his mother's writing (Flight to Freedom, published in 1942, was called "the first of the WWII escape stories") and to her dwindling jewelry, which she sold in order for them to eat and continue their journey. Having "pretended to be Catholic" under the Nazis, Padowicz writes of his growing identity as a Jew in Brazil, from an ugly encounter on the playground to an eye-opening meeting with the poet Julian Tuwim ("I hadn't thought that Jews could be poets"). Padowicz is forthright about "the liberty of reconstructing" the past; "Mother," he tells us, "was just as likely to make up a story as to tell the truth." What Padowicz makes of this is a touching account of how his mother used her remaining assets, which beside her jewelry, were her beauty and charm, to secure the safety that permitted him to grow. (Aug.)

Reviewed on: 06/27/2011

The three books in this series are the merriest Holocaust books I have ever read.  That is because the author has a great sense of humor and he and his mother are “characters.” She is gorgeous, resourceful, and knows how to use her looks and sex to get her and her son to safety. In addition, the author himself was a weird little guy who had strange ideas about God and religion, couldn’t relate to other children and formed conclusions about situations that were quite bizarre (both the situations and his conclusions!) After escaping over the Carpathian Mountains into Hungary (Book 1), eight-year-old Yulian and his mother, Barbara, with courage, wit, and a large diamond ring, finally make it by boat to Brazil—where they  have adventures—he with an older female refugee (Irenka), and she with a wealthy suitor whose Latin ardor clashes with her European upper-class values, but she really needs his money . . . So many romances and so much pretending! What a movie, maybe a musical, this would make. MWP
 
Jewish Book World; winter 2011