Broken Birds by Jeannette Katzir, a memoir

Opening sentences can give readers an idea of a book's style, writing, and a sense of the story. Here are the beginning sentences for the memoir, Broken Birds: the Story of My Momila by Jeannette Katzir.

Title: Broken Birds: the Story of My Momila
Author: Jeannette Katzir
Published April 2, 2009 by Jeannette Katzir

I hurried down the hallway but stopped when I saw her. "Mom, why did you do this?" I cried. I stood there for a moment and studied her face. She looked beautiful. A white silky scarf was artfully wrapped around her head like a headscarf and she was wearing her favorite red lipstick. She was smiling at me and there was a twinkle in her eyes. "This could have all been avoided," I told her. Waiting for a response would have been pointless, because photographs never answer back.

Book description: "World War II has long since ended, and yet Jaclyn and her four brothers and sisters grow up learning to survive it. Having lived through the Holocaust on the principles of constant distrust, their mother, Channa, dutifully teaches her children to cling to one another while casting a suspicious eye to the outside world. When Channa dies, the unexpected contents of her will force her adult children to face years of suppressed indignation. For Jacyln and her siblings, the greatest war will not be against strangers, but against one another. 

Broken Birds: The Story of My Momila is Jeannette Katzir's achingly honest memoir of the enduring effects of war. From her parents' harrowing experiences during the Holocaust to her own personal battles, Katzir exposes the maladies of heart and mind that those broken by war, inevitably and unintentionally pass down to the generations that follow."

Comments: I always admire the honesty of those who write memoirs and personal family history, but I find that this book has a lesson to teach.

About the author: Jeannette Katzir was born in New York of Holocaust survivors. Broken Birds: the Story of My Momila was published in 2010, marking the beginning of Katzir's career as an author. She lives in Southern California with her husband.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author.

The Friday 56: Broken Birds by Jeannette Katzir

Rules:

*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56.
*Find any sentence that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Link it to host Freda's Voice, here.

Broken Birds, The Story of My Momila by Jeannette Katzir, 2009

There is a truth in war: Every survivor has a story to tell. Sadly, it is very true. They have remembrances of evil too horrible to talk about, but anable to be forgotten. But, what of their children, the second and third generations? They too have stories to tell. Fortunately, their tales are not of prison guards and ovens, but of parents, who because of the war, were badly broken. Channa, a Partisan Fighter during World War II, prepares Katzir and her four siblings to survive a war that ended before they were born. Channa's rules are unbreakable: Failure means Death. Strangers mean Danger. Anyone who is not blood is a Stranger. When Channa suddenly dies, the unexpected contents of her will force her adult children to recognize the affects her guidance has had on their relationships with one another, with their created families, and with her. What was once a close-knit family is now led down the road to emotional destruction. (amazon)

"To stay alive here, you have to fight every day!" the man told Nathan.