This shattering memoir by a journalist about his father’s attempt to survive the aftermath of Auschwitz in a small industrial town in Sweden won the prestigious August Prize
On August 2, 1947 a young man gets off a train in a small Swedish town to begin his life anew. Having endured the ghetto of Lodz, the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the slave camps and transports during the final months of Nazi Germany, his final challenge is to survive the survival.
In this intelligent and deeply moving book, Göran Rosenberg returns to his own childhood to tell the story of his father: walking at his side, holding his hand, trying to get close to him. It is also the story of the chasm between the world of the child, permeated by the optimism, progress, and collective oblivion of postwar Sweden, and the world of the father, darkened by the long shadows of the past.
We move to the house I actually remember a year or two later. The documents say one thing and the aging memory another, but it doesn’t matter; this is where it all begins, in the building below the railroad station where the young man who would be my father alighted from the train on an early August evening in 1947, and which you can see right beneath the window on the left-hand side of the coach if you arrive by train from the north, across the Bridge.
This is it; this is the Place. This is where my world assumes its first colors, lights, smells, sounds, voices, gestures, names, and words. I’m not sure how far back a human being can remember; some people say they have memories going back to their second year, but my first memories are of snow and cold and therefore probably date from somewhat later, since I was born in October. But one thing I’m certain of is that even before the point where my memories of that first world of mine begin, it had already set its stamp on so much that even things I can no longer remember aren’t forgotten either. This is the Place that will continue to form me even when I’m convinced that I’ve formed myself.
Göran Rosenberg was born in 1948 in Sweden, the son of Auschwitz survivors. He is the author of several books, including the highly acclaimed Det förlorade landet (the original Swedish edition of Israel: A Personal History), A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz (Other Press, 2015), and Another Zionism, Another Judaism (Other Press, 2025).
View titles by Göran Rosenberg
This shattering memoir by a journalist about his father’s attempt to survive the aftermath of Auschwitz in a small industrial town in Sweden won the prestigious August Prize
On August 2, 1947 a young man gets off a train in a small Swedish town to begin his life anew. Having endured the ghetto of Lodz, the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the slave camps and transports during the final months of Nazi Germany, his final challenge is to survive the survival.
In this intelligent and deeply moving book, Göran Rosenberg returns to his own childhood to tell the story of his father: walking at his side, holding his hand, trying to get close to him. It is also the story of the chasm between the world of the child, permeated by the optimism, progress, and collective oblivion of postwar Sweden, and the world of the father, darkened by the long shadows of the past.
Excerpt
We move to the house I actually remember a year or two later. The documents say one thing and the aging memory another, but it doesn’t matter; this is where it all begins, in the building below the railroad station where the young man who would be my father alighted from the train on an early August evening in 1947, and which you can see right beneath the window on the left-hand side of the coach if you arrive by train from the north, across the Bridge.
This is it; this is the Place. This is where my world assumes its first colors, lights, smells, sounds, voices, gestures, names, and words. I’m not sure how far back a human being can remember; some people say they have memories going back to their second year, but my first memories are of snow and cold and therefore probably date from somewhat later, since I was born in October. But one thing I’m certain of is that even before the point where my memories of that first world of mine begin, it had already set its stamp on so much that even things I can no longer remember aren’t forgotten either. This is the Place that will continue to form me even when I’m convinced that I’ve formed myself.
Göran Rosenberg was born in 1948 in Sweden, the son of Auschwitz survivors. He is the author of several books, including the highly acclaimed Det förlorade landet (the original Swedish edition of Israel: A Personal History), A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz (Other Press, 2015), and Another Zionism, Another Judaism (Other Press, 2025).
View titles by Göran Rosenberg
