Motherland: Beyond the Holocaust - A Mother/Daughter Journey to Reclaim the Past

Fern Schumer Chapman
Penguin Books (2001)
ISBN 0140286233
Reviewed by Kim Peterson for Reader Views (5/06)

Edith Westerfield Schumer left Germany in 1938 as a twelve-year-old. She left alone. Her parents sent her to America, removing her from the threat of the Nazis in her German homeland. Her Jewish father mistakenly believed that Hitler would acknowledge his service to Germany in World War I. However, most of her family did not survive the persecution or the death camps. Edith never saw her parents again.

She rarely spoke of her childhood. Perhaps so much loss could not be expressed in words. Perhaps she didn’t know how to convey to her family what was ripped apart in her past. Her daughter Fern knew little of her heritage.

“Motherland” tells their story through her daughter Fern’s perspective. When her mother finally agrees to return to Germany, Fern accompanies her—hoping to learn about her grandparents, hoping to see aspects of her mother’s childhood, hoping to better understand how the Holocaust stole her past when it stole her mother’s.

Through their journey Fern and Edith learn much more about each other and about the quest to reconcile the past than they expected, significantly deepening their mother-daughter bond. Fern relates with poignancy how moments from her mother’s childhood are revealed during their visit. For the first time she realizes that her mother’s inability to speak German without an American accent parallels her inability to speak English without German pronunciations creeping in. Her speech identifies her as different from other Americans—and other Germans. Fern learns her mother’s favorite German food only to realize that Edith never learned to cook it before she was sent away. For the first time she hears of her mother’s insecurities about leaving her home.

They encounter people from Edith’s childhood who through their silence aligned themselves with the Nazis. Their lives still echo with hidden guilt. The mother and daughter speak with others who have never overcome their anger at the Nazis and what they suffered when they tried to help and protect the Jews. The women are struck by how people’s lives have never returned to normal.

Their story provides insight into mother-daughter relationships and the role of roots in those relationships. The memoir was named a finalist in 2000 in the National Jewish Book Awards by the Jewish Book Council and a number of schools use Motherland to teach about moral choices.

Edith and Fern acknowledge that the Holocaust has now affected three generations of their family. Somehow those who carry on must remember history and honor those cut down by cruelty, yet let go of the past moving ahead with the new generations into healing.

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