Poland, a Green Land

A Novel

By: Aharon Appelfeld, Stuart Schoffman - translator

Narrated by: Gilli Messer

A Tel Aviv shopkeeper visits his parents’ Polish birthplace in an attempt to come to terms with their complex legacy—and is completely unprepared for what he finds there.

Yaakov Fine’s practical wife and daughters are baffled by his decision to leave his flourishing dress shop for a ten-day trip to his family’s ancestral village in Poland. Struggling to emerge from a midlife depression, Yaakov is drawn to Szydowce, intrigued by the stories he'd heard as a child from his parents and their friends, who would wax nostalgic about their pastoral, verdant hometown in the decades before 1939. The horrific years that followed were relegated to the nightmares that shattered sleep and were not discussed during waking hours.

When he arrives in Krakow, Yaakov enjoys the charming sidewalk cafes and relaxed European atmosphere, so different from the hurly burly of Tel Aviv. And his landlady in Szydowce—beautiful, sensual Magda, with a tragic past of her own—enchants him with her recollections of his family. But when Yaakov attempts to purchase from the townspeople the desecrated tombstones that had been stolen from Szydowce’s plowed-under Jewish cemetery, a very different Poland emerges, one that shatters Yaakov’s idyllic view of the town and its people, and casts into sharp relief the tragic reality of Jewish life in Poland—past, present, and future.

In this novel of revelation and reconciliation, Aharon Appelfeld once again mines lived experience to create fiction of powerful, universal resonance.

Perspective

Gives great insight on what it means to be Jewish! I’m not Jewish and feel this was a fresh, sensitive and eye opening story!

I am gladvi found this book

On many levels this book was just what I needed today. Family history, rebellion and regret, misunderstanding, grief, loss, loveless marriage. Courage, bravery...

Fascinating portrayal of the holocaust experience of a second generation person

An engaging and touching portrayal of the holocaust experience through the eyes of a son of holocaust survivors . It shines the light on the trauma that second generation and perhaps third generation of post holocaust survivors are experiencing today. The reliving of his parents experience through set of encounters with today’s Poles is a masterpiece. The author points out a strange albeit beautiful kinship that develops between the protagonist and one of the females Poles he meets. This short lived encounter is Pointing out to the cultural affinities that may have been preserved between jews and gentles despite the holocaust , It also points out that not all Poles were Jew haters, although the uneducated poles carry their anti jewish biases to this very day. The reading experience has been augmented by the artful narration by Gili Messer. Her performance brings to life the author’s skillful sensitive depiction of Jewish life in the diaspora and the general attitude of Polish uneducated people towards strangers and people that are different. Gili’s deep understanding of the transcultural difference including language and intonation of expressions are unique .