Sunday, April 14, 2019

Where The Angels Lived: One Family’s Story of Exile, Loss, and Return by Margaret McMullan [Non-fiction Giveaway]

 “The destruction of the Jews in the country districts of Hungary was a simple business. The Germans made good use of their experience gained annihilating between three to four million Polish, German and Austrian Jews.”


I was given the opportunity to share information about Where the Angels Lived: One Family's Story of Exile, Los, and Return. Not having the personal time currently to read and absorb this memoir or journey of discovery of this family's history, I have chosen to go ahead and share some tidbits of information about the book and to host a giveaway. Needless to say, this is one that will inhabit my "to be read" shelf until I find the opportunity to delve into it.

The author discovered that her family has been comprised of distinguished and influential individuals in the days prior to the Holocaust. It seems that her family lived in Hungary. Also, they were affected by the Hungarian Holocaust.

“Sitting there in the pew carved of Moravian oak, I start to shake. I curse every last Hungarian who deported or murdered my family. See? Look at me. My mother got out and she had me and I had a son. You didn’t end us.”

The author journeyed to Israel and discovered the existence of Richard Engel de Janosi  a long-lost relative, at Israel's Holocaust Museum. So began an unexpected journey of revelation and connectivity as she tirelessly researches the history of her ancestors, the Engel de Janois.

While teaching as a Fullbright at a Hungarian University, she traveled to Pecs, the land of her mother's Jewish lineage. While in Pecs, a small Hungarian town that is primarily Christian, she realized how difficult her mission was to be. Thus began her determined and relentless documentation of a woman picking up the pieces of her family's fragmented history throughout the Hungarian Holocaust.

Historical, authentic, and family-oriented, Where the Angels Lived tells the tale of a somewhat parallel universe that exists even in the 21st century - dealings with Soviet-style bureaucracy, skepticism, anti-Semitism, and ironically the same sort of isolation and rejection Margaret's Jewish Hungarian family experienced in 1944 before they were forced into concentration camps.

GIVEAWAY
Begins April 15
Ends May 7 @ 12:01 a.m. EDT
Open to USA addresses only.
a Rafflecopter giveaway DISCLOSURE: I received a complimentary copy to facilitate this posting. Information is gleaned from materials already available. Winner's book is provided and shipped by publicist or author directly to the winner.

7 comments:

  1. My uncles were in WWll.
    Marilyn

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  2. I really don't have any personal connection to WWII or the Holocaust. But my college roommate's Dad participated in D-Day. And a good friend of mine's family lived in Poland at the time and was impacted (and able to get to the US).

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  3. My former husband's father came over as a stowaway, jumped ship and hid in an attic in New York for a year. He was Jewish and was trying to get away from the German Nazi's. He missed connections the first time, but made the connection to a safe house on the second try.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I HAD AN UNCLE WHO DIED IN WW11

    ReplyDelete
  5. I don't have any family connection with WWII or The Holocaust and I don't know anyone who does.

    ReplyDelete

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