In the growing landscape of Holocaust memoirs, Mamaleh by Elaine Culbertson stands out as a luminous, moving achievement. Why this memoir, among so many? First, because Culbertson succeeds in blending a child's hidden vantage with an adult’s fierce clarity, rendering scenes of Holocaust aftermath not only from survivor perspectives inside the camps, but from a little girl’s perspective beneath a Brooklyn dinner table, among shoes and whispered grief. Second, the memoir’s dual authorship, woven from Elaine's narrative and the haunting, eloquent writings of her mother, Dora Freilich, imbues the book with a rare combination of emotional resonance and historical authenticity, where the voices of survivor and daughter echo and deepen each other. Third, Culbertson’s prose is at once intimate and unflinching, building a portrait of memory, humor, affection, and a longing for connection over the generations.

 

This is a memoir about what was lost. It is also the story of how a survivor and her daughter shared, shaped, and questioned the ramifications of that loss. In Mamaleh, remembrance is an act of both past and future, preservation and perpetuation. It is also an act of love, an urgent plea for understanding, and a daughter’s reckoning with the quiet truths buried in her mother’s cries.

 

Mamaleh does more than commemorate the past; it catapults readers into the immediacy of a past that refuses to go away. Highly recommended.

 

Joshua M. Greene

author, Unstoppable