Walter Zacharius, The Memories We Keep

The Memories We Keep

Walter Zacharius

Kensington, Apr 2007, $14.00

ISBN: 0758217714

In 1975, Mia Levy lives the simple life of a kibbutz farmer near the increasingly hostile Lebanese border, having fled her homeland and a radically different life over three decades ago. However, now her past has caught up to her as clarinet player Vinnie Sforza sends her a letter stating he saw her in a Pathe newsreel working in the Israeli fields and by the time she reads his note, he will be airborne to see her so that they can remember the good but short time together in Brooklyn or perhaps be kicked out by her.

Mia looks back to fleeing Poland where in 1939 she went from a talented teenage pianist to being "that Jew" forced to play Hitler's Wagner instead of her beloved Chopin. Her father sold diamonds to get the family passage to the allies, but they were betrayed and placed on a train to Treblinka. As far as she knows only she escaped by fleeing to America where she met Vinnie. Unsure whether she can truly love someone again, Mia, obsessed with her family probably dead in the death camp, leaves Vinnie for Paris as an undercover operative helping the allies by becoming a dominatrix servicing Nazi customers. Now Vinnie is coming to see his true love.

The description of life in Poland in the late 1930s and early 1940s is incredibly detailed, vivid and harrowing as readers will wonder how people can do this to other people in the name of God and Hitler. Just having Chopin replaced by Wagner symbolizes how much the Nazis cleansed "impure" races, especially the Jews. The small segue in New York is also deep as the impact of the horrors on Mia's soul overwhelm her love of music and of Vinnie. Though the Paris take turns too raunchy, historical readers will appreciate this powerful reminder that any form of human cleansing is an abomination. Note this is a reprint of SONGBIRD.

Harriet Klausner