Where Memory Leads

narrative. It so happens that the main clusters of events that I shall evoke indeed followed each other; thus, the text tells of a sequence that took place in real time. First come the years of apprenticeship, in which I move from place to place, from country to country, in search of an identity and a calling. The second part deals with Israel, at the very outset, then from about 1967 when I started teaching in Jerusalem to the early 1980s and, less intensively so, in the subsequent years. Germany follows, from segments of my early life to this day, but mainly as I experienced it during the eighties. The fourth part turns to life in the United States. No life progresses along such neat divisions, and issues dominant during one stage may carry over to all that comes thereafter. In this memoir in particular, the main issues possibly less so regarding the American experience are interwoven throughout. In short, these divisions represent temporary accentuations of one central issue during a given period, accentuations that are often narrated within the context of the minute incidents of everyday life. This book shows the influence of the Shoah (the Holocaust) on my personal life and on my reactions to Israel, Germany, and ultimately America. And, as the narration progresses, it also increasingly centers on the writing and teaching of history, particularly the history of the Holocaust, the essential work of my life. Thus, the writing of that history and, in my case, the unavoidable relation of memory to history is a recurring theme in each of the succeeding parts, even the first one. Beyond this central theme, by dint of circumstances, I became deeply involved at times in places and issues that continue to attract intense general interest; they are presented here from a subjective perspective, but as openly and candidly as possib

literature.   Association of Jewish Libraries

Orphans of the Shoah, Saul Friedländer became its most revered Historian. His survival in a Catholic seminary, his vocation for the priesthood, and his rediscovery of Jewish identity are the subjects of his classic When Memory Comes. This new book recalls with equal sensitivity the quests of his subsequent life. Never sure what home he belonged, Friedländer spent years shuttling among universities in Switzerland, Israel, and California. Despite bouts of anxiety, he crossed intellectual swords with some of his generation s most redoubtable personalities. His attachment to Israel matches in intensity only his rejections of some of its policies. There is never a dull page. Robert O. Paxton, Professor Emeritus at Columbia University

A gripping, troubling narrative. The great historian of the Shoah talks about his life, about research and politics, about places (France, Israel, United States), and people. Page after page we feel we are getting closer to him. Then we suddenly realize how inscrutable an individual life is to us, to the narrator himself Carlo Ginzburg, Professor Emeritus at UCLA and author of Threads and Traces: True, False, Fictive

Saul Friedländer is an engaging companion on this journey through the second half of the twentieth century. The people, situations, and events he encountered come vividly to life, though never far away are the memories of World War II that he pondered throughout his remarkable career. Theodore K. Rabb, Professor Emeritus of History at Princeton University
 
The most creative and innovative scholar of the Holocaust, Saul Friedländer has written far more than a memoir. A haunting sequel to When Memory Comes, Where Memory Leads explores the very private and personal as well as scholarly and political sides of the author s adult life. It shows Friedländer seemingly at home in many places and languages, but ultimately as a Jewish outsider everywhere. Fascinating reading for anyone interested in intellectual life in exile, Holocaust scholarship, and Jewish identity. Christopher R. Browning, Frank Porter Graham Professor of History Emeritus, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

In this engaging new memoir written forty years after his first one, Saul Friedländer examines the forces that propelled him from occupied France, where he spent World War II as a hidden Jewish child, into an active political life in Israel, which he managed to combine with a brilliant academic career in Europe and the United States. Where Memory Leads is an engrossing backward glance enriched with startling anecdotes and tender, poetic evocations of Paris in the fifties and Jerusalem of yesteryear. Anka Muhlstein, author of Monsieur Proust s Library and Balzac s Omelette