To write about a trip to Eastern Europe is daunting. So I’ll split my memories into two blogs. This one is dedicated to Berlin, centered on the memorials. I was struck by Professor James E. Young’s comment from his brilliant talk “Landscape of Memory" (available on youtube.com). Speaking of Holocaust memorials, he said, “in each of these places [archives and museums of the world], I found a very different Holocaust.” He continues, “memorials and museums shape the Holocaust in different ways.” This was the essence of what I discovered and it revealed a lot about how each country is coming to terms (or is not) with the Holocaust.
My relationship with Germany has not been very informed or intimate over the years. However, as Harry's and my thirtieth wedding anniversary approached, we were looking for a special place. My father-in-law’s vote for Berlin as “most fascinating city” was seconded by my...
Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing by Anya Von Bremzen. Crown Publishers: NY 2013.
Let’s begin with a few basic facts.
1. While we have grocery stores in the US, citizens in the Former Soviet Union have for decades waited in endless lines trying to “procure” food.
2. As Anya Von Bremzen states, “Inevitably, a story about Soviet food is a chronicle of longing, of unrequited desire.” (p.2)
Since we just completed two Passover seders, I must pose the question -- why is Anya Von Bremzen’s memoir different than all previous memoirs?
Other writers may be eloquent or witty, but this author is both. I love the comparison of her Mom’s dream life to black and white movies from Stalinist times “sleek cold war thrillers laced with KGB spooks; melodramas starring duty-crushed lovers.”
Second, because this is a shared memoir of Anya and her 79... 
