The Guggenheim File

These true stories begin with the discovery of the "Guggenheim File" buried in Germany's State Archives in Hamburg. The file contains thorough and painstaking documentation, and is the starting point for the author's enormous effort to find out what happened to the families of both her mother and father before they were forced to leave Germany, and how her parents ended up in Brazil. This time-travel takes the reader through personal accounts of hardship and celebration, of success and failure, of obstacles and generosity. We are given a picture of ordinary lives caught in the grip of cataclysmic events. With great subtlety and tenderness Sylvia Griffiths continues the storytelling tradition of the Haggadah - remember and recount. Memories of growing up in Brazil amongst a family of survivors are evoked, as the veil of silence imposed by parents unwilling to harm their children with historical tragedy is delicately lifted. The effect is that of a complex tapestry that interweaves intimate personal stories with the grand sweep of history. There is a golden thread of Jewish faith and family that binds the separate stories and disparate events across time and space, and provides this fascinating account with its sustaining message.