LEGACY OF RESCUE: A DAUGHTER'S TRIBUTE by Marta Fuchs_Review

Legacy of Rescue: A Daughter's Tribute by Marta Fuchs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review of Legacy of Rescue: A Daughter’s Tribute by Marta Fuchs

I don’t imagine any reader, even the most jaded and world-weary, is going to be able to read this “memoir of sorts” without prodigious tears. I certainly couldn’t. Even if your weeping is internal rather than obvious, you’ll still be tearing up over the loss of lives, and also over the joy and hope and faith demonstrated here. Author Marta Fuchs, who has already, in combination with her brother Henry, published a memoir of their Hungarian Jewish family, here explores—primarily in the words of narrative recollection—the traumatic events of World War II in Eastern Europe, and of the subsequent Soviet occupation of Hungary in 1956. The author’s Jewish family suffered greatly, simply because of their religion and ethnicity, and many suffered even worse, including torture and death. Yet there were those such as the Commanding Officer of her father’s forced labor unit, a Hungarian Gentile (non-Jew), who guided and protected the men under his command; yet himself was taken prisoner by the Russian Army, conscripted into a forced labour camp in Siberia, and died from disease, never to return to his wife and son. Woven throughout the narratives are threads of compassion and terror, joy and torment, hope and fervor and faith. This is an unforgettable—and very true—story. Read it and weep—and you will.

I reviewed a complimentary e-book copy via NetGalley


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