Echoes of Exile

A Family’s Odyssey through the Holocaust and Cold War

By Daniela Spenser

SERIES: War, Memory, and Culture

University of Alabama Press

A sweeping exploration of survival, resilience, and the fate of one family amid Europe’s most turbulent century

Echoes of Exile reveals the seismic disruptions of twentieth-century European history through the intimate lens of one family’s struggle to survive. Setting out to record the life of her mother, Ruth, Daniela Spenser unearthed personal facts and stories that additionally illuminate the shared traumas and experiences of millions of Czech, Polish, and German Jews who died in the Holocaust, as well as the stories of those who survived and lived under Communism and the Cold War. Her resulting work is a fascinating hybrid that combines family letters and interviews with deeply researched political history spanning from the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Spenser’s fascinating work reveals the difficult choices her mother and family faced, the tests to their loves and loyalties, and the lingering scars of exile. More than a family history, it weaves personal and historical narratives with mundane and momentous threads to create a fresh, distinctive fabric. Spenser recovers fragments of the past that contribute to a map of the present and possibilities for the future. An engrossing account of survival, resilience, and the enduring human spirit amid the maelstrom of Europe’s savage twentieth century, Echoes of Exile will interest readers who value firsthand accounts of significant events and who seek to understand the complexities of survival, identity, and political change through intimate, lived experiences.

Reviews

Spenser’s erudition as a writer and scholar shines through. . . . [Echoes of Exile] is a fascinating and highly readable account of the author’s family history during a tumultuous period in world history. It is a story worth telling.' —S. Jonathan Wiesen, coauthor of Nazi Germany: Society, Culture, and Politics

‘Weaving her Jewish family’s odyssey through the brutal prism of 20th century Eastern Europe and two enforced Western exiles, Daniela Spenser has produced a compassionate, yet admirably detached and scholarly book, which serves as a timely reminder of the endurance of the human spirit and faith in progressive politics.’
—Kevin McDermott, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, Sheffield Hallam University.

A well-organized book, well written, and highly readable. The history and research done on the historical evidence is excellent and sits well alongside the family’s story.’ —David A. Messenger, author of War and Public Memory: Case Studies in Twentieth-Century Europe

Author

Daniela Spenser is a fellow at CIESAS (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social) in Mexico City. She is author of The Impossible Triangle: Mexico, Soviet Russia, and the United States in the 1920s and Stumbling Its Way Through Mexico: The Early Years of the Communist International.

List of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

Part I

Chapter 1. The Seeds of Catastrophe

Chapter 2. A Journey into the Unknown

Chapter 3. Joining the Battlefield

Part II

Chapter 4. Life in Hell

Chapter 5. Sailing to Palestine

Chapter 6. A Prisoner of War

Chapter 7. A Return to the Mother Country