HADASSAH

An unusual autobiography that often turns away from the writer and toward the lives of family members past and present.

Lieberman (b. 1948) has a unique story to share: The daughter of two Holocaust survivors, she emigrated from Czechoslovakia as a child, earned a master’s degree in international relations and worked at Lehman Brothers and Pfizer, and, in 1982, married prominent politician (and eventual vice presidential contender) Joe Lieberman. While the narrative is occasionally intriguing and even moving in the sections about her parents, the prose leaves much to be desired. The first two chapters are the most riveting, as the author discusses her mother’s imprisonment at Auschwitz and her father’s time at a camp he called “the Hungarian Auschwitz.” Their stories, in part shared via their own words, are worth recording and disseminating, so the book has value in that regard. Shortly after the war, the two survivors immigrated with their infant daughter to America, settling in Gardner, Massachusetts, “a classic New England industrial town.” Lieberman describes a somewhat idyllic youth as a rabbi’s daughter in a town that had only around 30 Jewish families. Here, the memoir grows less engaging as the author describes a rather common tale of college, early career, first marriage, and divorce. Her second marriage thrust her into the public eye, and an interesting theme through the final chapters is how she and her family remained observant Jews despite political demands. However, Lieberman provides too few details about these years, information that would have captivated general readers. The author includes many quotes from her immediate family to flesh out her own story and offer hope to the future, but by the end of the book, most readers will have lost interest.

A flat memoir that still serves a purpose as a Holocaust remembrance.