More than 60 years later, Irene Levin Berman decided to share her story to help answer the many questions she has received from her American contemporaries and to bear witness to a largely untold and nearly forgotten chapter in the tragic history of the Holocaust. 

 

The book was first published in Norwegian in September 2008 to very favorable reviews. One reviewer called it “an important piece of Norway’s history and a family chronicle (…) depicting three generations of a Jewish family.” Norway’s Resistance Museum sponsored its publication in Norway http://www.mil.no/felles/nhm/start/;jsessionid=G5NKCAHLGJOAXQFIZYGSFEQ?_requestid=55989  

 

Publication of the English version of the book was released in March 2010. In it, Irene provides a poignant chronicle of her family’s experiences during the war, including the loss of seven members of her father’s family, along with a history of Norwegian Jewry.  

 

The book describes the integration and assimilation of the Jews into Norwegian society through the outbreak of the war in 1940. It also includes descriptions of how Irene’s family functioned during the first two years of the war and how they planned and carried out their escape to neutral Sweden. She includes vivid recollections of their three years as refugees in Sweden. 

 

After the war, Irene focuses on the psychological silence that prevailed among those returning Jews who were intent on rebuilding their lives in Norway. She hauntingly recalls the gaps in the Jewish community created by the missing relatives. Those who perished in Auschwitz were commonly referred to as “having disappeared.” The pain associated with terms like murdered or killed was just too enormous to bear. 

 

Irene reflects on her own feelings as a child trying to understand this silence and subsequent lack of communication with the adults about those who had “disappeared” from her life. In particular, her book chronicles the story of her aunt, uncle and two cousins, who lived in Aalesund, a small town in northwestern Norway. 

 

The only Jewish family in town, they were successful and highly respected. Despite repeated warnings, the family was reluctant to leave and chose to stay in Norway. They felt safe there. Ultimately, the entire family was annihilated in Auschwitz. As a child, the only time Irene heard their names mentioned was when a grand piano arrived at her home. She was told it came from their estate. 

 

Over the years, Irene needed to learn more about these relatives and undertook extensive research to get to know their story. The book pays homage to the family by describing the last two years of their lives prior to deportation. Irene was able to share their story through the eyes and hearts of the few persons in their hometown who remain alive and who knew members of the family. 

 

Irene’s father, Marcus Levin, was involved in refugee work before and during the war, as well as after his return to Norway.  He worked as a voluntary representative for the American Joint Distribution Committee, which was instrumental in providing funds through the Claims Conference and other sources to resettle refugees who had survived the Holocaust and resettled in Norway.  Norway became the first country in the world to accept the so-called “minus” refugees.  Marcus Levin was honored with King Olav’s Gold Medal of Honor for his work in 1959, three years before his death. 

 

With her move to the United States in 1960 and marriage to an American, Irene recounts some of the challenges in accepting yet another culture, that of an American. Irene Levin Berman has come to embrace and treasure the three identities that have informed and defined her life: Norwegian, Jewish and American.