When Memory Comes

Plot

"Distinguished historian Saul Friedlander recalls his childhood during the Holocaust in this memoir. Four months before Hitler came to power, he was born in Prague as Pavel Friedlander to a middle-class Jewish family. In 1939, seven-year-old Pavel and his family were forced to flee Czechoslovakia for France, but his parents were able to conceal their son in a Roman Catholic seminary before being shipped to their destruction. After a whole-hearted religious conversion, young Pavel began training for priesthood. The birth of Israel prompted his discovery of his Jewish past and his true identity. Friedlander describes his experiences, moving from Israeli present to European past with composure and elegance."--BOOK JACKET.