In the Garden of Memory: A Memoir Book

Elegantly written memoir of the author's jewish family. Her grandmother was the daughter of a Viennese rabbi and came to be the publisher of the best Polish poets and writers. Throughout the turbulent twentieth century and the war years family members dispersed around the world - to European spas, tsarist prisons, Soviet war camps and the British RAF. One became an undercover agent, another a zoologist in France, another a Dutch adventurer. All were united by their passionate, and often dangerous, commitment to Communist ideals. The Horowitzs moved in circles which included Andre Citroen, Lenin, Sigmund Freud and Prince Charles. Amazingly only one member was a victim of the Holocaust though WW2 left lasting psychological after-effects on all the survivors. The author, for example, who spent ten months hiding in a polytechnic building, was unable to show any emotion when reunited with her family and was unable to think about the past for many years after. Written in a charmingly frank and intimate manner this is an enticing and romantic family saga which at the same time includes all the dramatic motifs of the twentieth century. It contains lively and atmospheric descriptions of all aspects of its characters lives and reads like the best of novels.Read More