The survivors : a story of war, inheritance, and healing

Chicago Tribune Notable Book of 2019 A memoir of family, the Holocaust, trauma, and identity, in which Adam Frankel, a former Obama speechwriter, must come to terms with the legacy of his family’s painful past and discover who he is in the wake of a life-changing revelation about his own origins. “The Survivors is an astonishingly beautiful and profoundly moving book. Frankel’s haunting search to unravel the mysteries of his family is so compelling that it reads like a fine novel.” –Doris Kearns Goodwin Adam Frankel’s maternal grandparents survived the Holocaust and built new lives, with new names, in Connecticut. Though they tried to leave the horrors of their past behind, the pain they suffered crossed generational lines—a fact most apparent in the mental health of Adam’s mother. When Adam sat down with her to examine their family history in detail, he learned another shocking secret, this time one that unraveled Adam’s entire understanding of who he is. In the midst of piecing together a story of inherited familial trauma, Adam discovered he was only half of who he thought he was, knowledge that raised essential questions of identity. Who was he, if not his father’s son? If not part of a rich heritage of writers and public servants? Does it matter? What defines a family’s bonds? What will he pass on to his own children? To rewrite his story in truth and to build a life for his own young family, Adam had to navigate his pain to find answers and a way forward. Throughout this journey into the past, his family’s psyche, and his own understanding of identity, Adam comes to realize that while the nature of our families’ traumas may vary, each of us is faced with the same choice. We can turn away from what we’ve inherited—or, we can confront it, in the hopes of moving on and stopping that trauma from inflicting pain on future generations. The stories Adam shares with us in The Survivors are about the ways the past can haunt our future, the resilience that can be found on the other side of trauma, and the good that can come from things that are unspeakably bad. "A memoir of family, the Holocaust, trauma, and identity, in which Adam Frankel, a former Obama speechwriter, must come to terms with the legacy of his family's painful past and discover who he is in the wake of a life-changing revelation about his own origins. Adam Frankel's maternal grandparents survived the Holocaust and built new lives, with new names, in Connecticut. Though they tried to leave the horrors of their past behind, the pain they suffered crossed generational lines--a fact most apparent in the mental health of Adam's mother. When Adam sat down with her to examine their family history in detail, he learned another shocking secret, this time one that unraveled Adam's entire understanding of who he is. In the midst of piecing together a story of inherited familial trauma, Adam discovered he was only half of who he thought he was, knowledge that raised essential questions of identity. Who was he, if not his father's son? If not part of a rich heritage of writers and public servants? Does it matter? What defines a family's bonds? What will he pass on to his own children? To rewrite his story in truth and to build a life for his own young family, Adam had to navigate his pain to find answers and a way forward. Throughout this journey into the past, his family's psyche, and his own understanding of identity, Adam comes to realize that while the nature of our families' traumas may vary, each of us is faced with the same choice. We can turn away from what we've inherited--or, we can confront it, in the hopes of moving on and stopping that trauma from inflicting pain on future generations. The stories Adam shares with us in The Survivors are about the ways the past can haunt our future, the resilience that can be found on the other side of trauma, and the good that can come from things that are unspeakably bad"-- Book jacket The grandson of Holocaust survivors comes to terms with his family's painful past and a shocking revelation of his own origins in this moving memoir. Adam Frankel's maternal grandparents survived the Holocaust and built new lives, with new names, in New Haven, Connecticut. Though they tried to leave the horrors of their past behind, the pain they suffered crossed generational lines—a fact most apparent in the mental health of Adam's mother. When Adam set out to examine his family history, he learned a shocking secret that unraveled Adam's entire understanding of who he is and where he came from. Through this journey into the past—from the horrors of Dachau to an identity crisis as a speechwriter in the Obama White House to the long road toward healing—Adam is forced to reckon with his family's psyche and secrets, the science of trauma, the cruelty of mental illness, and the ugly truth of his own origins. Through the process, he comes to realize that while the nature of our families' traumas may vary, each of us is faced with the same choice: we can turn away from what we've inherited or we can confront it in the hopes of moving on and stopping that trauma from inflicting pain on future generations. Chicago Tribune Notable Book of 2019 A memoir of the haunting legacy of the trauma of the Holocaust and the meaning of familial identity by a man who must figure out who he is in the wake of a life-changing revelation about his own lineage Adam Frankel's Bubbie and Zayde, his mother's parents, were Holocaust survivors—a fact he's lived with his entire life. But they were more than that, too. Zayde was a watchmaker named Abraham Perecman, infamous in New Haven for his rigor and integrity. He was also, at one point, Gershon Gubersky—a Jew from a small village in eastern Europe. Bubbie was his constant companion, the only other person in his life to know what it was like to be hunted by German soldiers. Together they made a new life, with new names, in America. And tried to leave the painful memories behind. Try as his grandparents did to keep their past from intruding upon their new American life, a story so powerful crosses generational lines—a fact most apparent in...