Dysfunctional families exist in every culture and country. Each of them is unique within the confines of its community. But some exist in such a wide concept we are taken with the matrix of the dysfunction and how it came to be. This is so true of "Remembering Judith-A True Story of Shattered Childhoods." A story of unhappiness that traces its roots to the exodus of Jewish children from the European continent to the insecurity of a strange country and family life in WWII England and into the post war boom of the 50's and 60's.
Although we have heard of those children who were spirited out of Germany and other European countries prior to WWII, we have little information on how they adapted and survived being taken from their families and sent into a world they were unprepared for. Taking teens and younger children and trying to immerse them into a culture, lifestyle, language and sometimes even religion that they did not understand and were unprepared for had to leave a lasting impression which, in some cases, led to fear and lifetime dysfunction. "Remembering Judith" is the story of one teen girl who left her home in Germany to become a lifelong resident of England. Her story is both a celebration of the human ability to endure and a handbook for the emotional devastation of separation from family and culture.
Judith is transported to England as an adolescent and learns very quickly that she must be the master of her own destiny. Just as she begins to become her own woman with a job she loves and a future she is determined for herself, she becomes ill. During her illness she meets the man she will marry. A good man at the time, but a man unsuitable to her. Feeling alone, abandoned and trapped she marries and has a daughter. Even with the wrong man, for her, she starts her own business, builds her home with traditional Jewish values and develops a sense of who she is. But as time wears on, Judith becomes overwhelmed by the work she must do in order to have her own business, raise a child and be the perfect wife and homemaker. Soon she developed Anorexia Nervosa. Her eating disorders become the cornerstone on which all family dynamics now take place.
Her only child, Ruth, becomes the caretaker, family peacemaker and the center of her parent's dysfunction. As her mothers illness progresses in a time when the diagnoses were rare and treatment was not well developed, Ruth must find a way to keep her mother alive, while watching her father withdraw both emotionally and physically. She becomes the ground zero for her parent's dysfunction. As she falls victim to her own eating disorder she must still be a stand in for the perfect family that is being presented to the outside world. Her fight to become independent of her family is one that so many children face. Making her story both heart wrenching and life affirming.
A haunting story that brings WWII, The Holocost, and post war England into the living rooms of the families who survived, reminding us that while the war is long over, its tendencies still reach out to the generations who follow.
For those of us who grew up post-war there are quite a few reminders of the 50's most especially in the talk of food and dinner parties. I remember quite a few of the foods discussed, the parties my parents gave or went to and this story brought them back to life. Remembering the hours my mother would put into any occasion and the skill and charm that generation of mothers brought to everything they did. It is all here in this story.
This is a story I would like my daughters and granddaughters to read. A peek at life mid-century and an understanding of how our quest for a media driven perfection can lead to the destruction of everything around us.
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