Trieste: A NovelIn Italy, an elderly mother awaits a reunion with the son stolen from her by the Nazis—“A darkly hypnotic kaleidoscope of a book” (The Jewish Daily Forward). Haya Tedeschi sits alone in Gorizia, in northeastern Italy, surrounded by a basket of photographs and newspaper clippings. Now an old woman, she waits to be reunited after sixty-two years with her son, fathered by an SS officer and stolen from her by the German authorities as part of Himmler’s clandestine Lebensborn project. Tedeschi reflects on her Catholicized Jewish family’s experiences, in a narrative that deals unsparingly with the massacre of Italian Jews in the concentration camps of Trieste. Her obsessive search for her son leads her to photographs, maps, and fragments of verse, to testimonies from the Nuremberg trials and interviews with second-generation Jews, and to eyewitness accounts of atrocities that took place on her doorstep. From this broad collage of material and memory arises the staggering chronicle of Nazi occupation in northern Italy that “explores the 20th century’s darkest chapter in an original way . . . an exceptional reading experience” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune). |
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Abramo Aktion Reinhard Alberto Aldo Alessandro Alhadeff Amelia Angelo Anna Anticoli Astrologo Bad Arolsen Belzec Benun born Bruno Burbea Calò camp Capelluto Carlo Cesare Coen Davide detto Efrati Elena Elia Emma Enrico Ester Eugenio father Finzi Florian Foà Fortunata Franco Funaro gas chambers German Giacobbe Giacomo Giorgio Giulia Giuseppe Gmunden Gorizia Grafeneck Haim Hanan Hasson Haya Haya says Haya Tedeschi Haya’s Helga Himmler Hitler Hugnu Isacco Israel Italian Jewish Jews killed Kurt Franz Labi Lebensborn Leone Letizia Levi lives Marco Margherita Maria Mario Matilde Menascè Moscati Mosè mother Nazi Nepi Nissim Notrica Nuremberg Olga Pacifico Pavoncello Piperno Porto prison Rachele Raffaele Rebecca Regina Reginiano Renato Renato Caccioppoli Roberto Piazza Rosa Salomone Samuele San Sabba Sara says Elvira Weiner scharführer Segni Segre Sermoneta Settimio Sobibor Soča Sonnino Spizzichino Stella Tarica Tedeschi family Terracina train Treblinka Trieste Umberto Umberto Saba Veroli Vittorio Vivanti woman Zarfati