Writer Irene Nemirovsky may very well be Ukraine’s undiscovered jewel.
Born in Kyiv in 1903 and meeting her horrendous death 39 years later in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz, Nemirovsky left a body of work that remains mostly a mystery. During her shortened life, part of which was spent in France, Nemirovsky published 14 novels that were both critical and bold.
Many of her works dealt with family conflict and a tumultuous Kyiv childhood. Some critics called her a self-hating Jew because her works often portrayed her own people negatively. The paradox of Nemirovsky’s life is that, even though she was born a Jew, she died a Christian.
Denise Epstein, Nemirovsky’s daughter, visited Ukraine this fall to talk about a mother who persevered even in death. Eight books were published after the author died, including “Suite Francaise,” a book written as Hitler’s army occupied France and may be considered her masterpiece. Another work “Vin de Solitude” was translated into Ukrainian earlier this year. A profoundly personal account, it gives the reader an insight into Nemirovsky’s childhood and life in Kyiv before the Russian Revolution.
‘Suite Francaise’ about Hitler’s occupation of France may be considered Irene Nemirovsky’s masterpiece.
The author was born in Kyiv into a life of privilege to a banker father and an angry mother. Their complex relationship subsequently became the focus of many of her works. The family fled the Russian empire at the revolution’s outbreak in 1917, spent a year in Finland and then settled in Paris. Nemirovsky attended the Sorbonne and started to write at 18.
Having married Michel Epstein, also a banker, she gave birth to daughters Denise and Elizabeth. By the time she was murdered by the Nazis in 1942, Nemirovsky had published a large body of work in French. The tale of Jewish banker David Golder in the novel of the same name, who is unable to please his problematic daughter, established her as one of the leading writers of her time.
In a way, Nemirovsky’s story has also been Epstein’s, who has become the bearer of her mother’s legacy. It is Epstein who discovered the manuscript that eventually became “Suite Francaise.” The novel had been written in a notebook, which Epstein thought was her mother’s diary. For five decades, she dared not look inside it, fearful it would cause pain.
Nemirovsky converted to Catholicism in 1939 to protect the family against persecution. Anti-Semitic comments lobbed at Nemirovsky, however, still cause Epstein pain.
“Those attacks make me angry, of course, and fill me with a feeling of injustice,” she said.
“Nevertheless, I can hear the questions of Jews who look at this period with post-Holocaust eyes. I felt the same before. But one shouldn’t mix up social criticism of a special environment and the denial of one’s identity. As someone told me on the opening day of the Paris exhibition dedicated to my mother in the Memorial de la Shoah, to judge a victim of the Holocaust is always scandalous and disgraceful. I believe that.”
It is a weird feeling giving birth to your own mother…but I am sure she is happy and so am I that she returned to her own country.”
– Denise Epstein, a 81-year old daughter of Irene Nemirovsky’
Despite tremendous sorrow, Epstein recalls a happy childhood. The family lived in Paris before World War II and Nazi racial policies forced them to flee to the village of Issy-l’Eveque.
“In Paris, our life was all very simple,” said Epstein. “We, the children, were kept away from grown-ups, but Mum was always by us for a walk, for the gouter [tastings] and for bedtime. A very common family!”
The image of her mother that stays with Epstein most, however, “is one, of course, her picture on the morning of the last day, which often erases the many pictures of the happy days that I keep in mind.” As she was being led away by police before deportation, Nemirovsky reportedly told her daughters, “I am going on a journey now.”
Of her father, who also died in Auschwitz, Epstein said: “I remember him as well as my mother. He loved life, but in the end I saw him hopeless, looking desperately for the wife he loved so much.”
Epstein “had dreamed” her parents were alive after Auschwitz was liberated in January 1945, but she never wanted to visit the camp. “I wouldn’t stamp the ashes of those who were killed. I have no need to see the suitcases and hair to understand what happened,” she said, referring to the exhibits at Auschwitz, where personal belongings and huge piles of hair shaved off inmates’ heads are displayed.
Nemirovsky’s work is published in 38 languages, including English. “Vin de Solitude” is the first to appear in the land of her birth. “Suite Francaise” about the Nazi’s reign of terror in Paris is currently being translated into Ukrainian and should be released next year.
“I think it was one of her dreams, but she did not live to see Ukraine again,” Epstein said, who’s 81 now. “It is a weird feeling giving birth to your own mother…but I am sure she is happy and so am I that she returned to her own country.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Natalia A. Feduschak can be reached at [email protected].
