Edith Zack
Edith Zack
Family Research
״Home is where one starts from״
T.S. Eliot
An autobiographical novel that presents the experience of a holocaust survivor’s family living in the first years of the state of Israel. It centers on three generations of women observed by the author (represented by Vera) from childhood to adulthood. Vera takes us with her on a journey that moves between past and present, immigrants and local natives, cruelty, and compassion, herself, and 'otherness'.
The uniqueness of this novel, as Varda Fox writes in her review, is "the innocence of language, before it becomes the legacy of adulthood, and the loving kindness that moves alongside the horrors of history. Even the difficulties are presented in a relaxed atmosphere, as though the spoken language does everything to avoid becoming a burden on the reader."
Travels with Vera
Press & Media
'Travels with Vera' ('מסעותי עם ורה') in Hebrew was reviewed by different mediums and was received eagerly, and with great empathy by the press and by readers. “Books about the Holocaust mostly leave readers with an oppressive feeling. But Travels with Vera leaves something of a smile and a deeper understanding of the second generation, the children of Holocaust survivors… This is a unique book” (Maariv-NRG (; From the moment I finished reading this book, I wanted to go back and read it again… An overwhelming book (Makor Rishon) Readers identified with it as if it were their own lives that had been presented. In the words of one of the readers: “The atmosphere, the scents, the exposed voices, and the whispers underneath.... Your personal story is so much ours. How far, how close, how moving.”
26th of September 2005.
My sister Helen passed away.
On her death bed Helen asked me to be the one to fulfil our sister Lili’s oral testament. Lili was sent to the gas chamber in Birkenau in December 1942.
Ever since Helen’s passing I have embarked on a journey of collecting information about the Jewish communities and Jewish life in two towns in Slovakia; Michalovce, hometown of my mother and my sister, and Prešov, hometown of my father, and the place where I was born.
Naturally, I have also been collecting material about my parent’s families. Some of my findings rely on photos I found in family albums, some I retrieved out of testimonies given to me, others I found in libraries and archives.
Parts of my findings were weaved into my autobiographical novel ‘Travels with Vera’; other parts are still in the process of collecting, discovering and learning. Some of the information I will present in my posts on my blog here, hoping that whoever has more information to add, she/he will contact me, and will be blessed.