Safety and security is what Australia of the mid 90’s offered her family, the author Raya Goldtwig reminisces about her childhood driven by war and genocide. She is a living witness to her family’s experiences and endurance of the horrors and cruelties of the Second World War, despite losing their home and roots of belonging in the death camps of Auschwitz and Treblinka.
Revisiting childhood memories and writing stories about them is both a journey of fear and deep sadness but also of a child’s sense of wonder and optimism. This is at the core of her writing – the love of all children and their innocence and their hope lays the foundation for this book. She realised how vital those early years to the shaping of the adults we become, forming her solidity by being a kindergarten assistant at 14, then a teacher, and finally a principal.
She writes, “education shapes our imagination, being loved allow us to love others, safety allows us to feel secure – to know joy allows us to bring joy”. Many of these things she knew only by their absence in her childhood and wishes that no child deserves such a fate regardless of their birthplace or their faith or politics followed by their parents.
THE WORLD BELONGS TO THE CHILDREN is a sentiment highlighting childhood innocence, future stewardship, and sometimes, the resilience required to grow up in challenging circumstances. The term is often used to emphasise nurturing the next generation, notably in upcoming literature. The notion that children are the inheritors of the future and must be protected is essential to life.
In August 1939 Goldtwig’s secure and happy childhood as a three-year-old daughter of a prosperous Jewish shop owner in Warsaw came to an abrupt end. Together with her father, mother and brother, she fled across the border to Soviet territory enduring terror and uncertainty but also building a new home and a new community. When Nazi Germany invaded, though, Goldtwig and her family again had to flee.
Against such a horrible backdrop, Goldtwig’s story of love, community and wonder is a testament to the human spirit and the power of hope in the face of tragedy. Looking through a young girl’s eye, she clearly shows why childhood is precious, and why we must ensure all children are safe from the evil of war.
This story will resonate with everybody as a lyrical memoir of a young Jewish girl learning the importance of connection and community even as the world grows dark around her.
Goldtwig has published this memoir at the tender age of 90, recounting how her family ended up in a refugee relocation camp in Germany before arriving in Melbourne in 1950, speaking six languages. She describes the writing process as emotional cruelty almost like reckoning with decades of suppressed grief. Yet despite the darkness of the subject matter, the book is centred on connection, rather than bitterness. Her mindset was literally about surviving. Her book is addressing the world at large.
Goldtwig also shared the cover photograph which carries its own quiet heartbreak. It depicts Mala, a childhood friend, who lost her entire family in the war and then disappeared from Goldtwig’s life. Decades later, she is still searching for her. Some of the tears that the reader experiences will accord the grief and loss but also for the joy that Goldtwig’s story engenders.
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Raya Goldtwig THE WORLD BELONGS TO THE CHILDREN
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN : 9781761637070
Format : Hardcover
RRP : $36.99
