Jo Sorochinsky, Dancing with my father:
His hidden past.
Her quest for truth.
How Nazi Vienna shaped a family’s identity,
Amsterdam Publishers, Oegstgeest The Netherlands, 2021.
As the book cover says, this is a compelling memoir and a powerful story told by a daughter–now living in Lowertown–seeking to know more about her father’s past life. While growing up, Jo identified as having an Irish mother and an Austrian father. It took years of persistent questioning to discover the tragedy of a Jewish family destroyed by the Nazis.
Anselm Horwitz was raised as a Catholic in Vienna but during the Second World War was targeted as a Jew because his parents were converts. Over time, his family lost their access to possessions, to freedom, to housing, to food and to life, for his parents. The seventeen-year-old Anselm was given a visa to Ireland in 1939 and never saw his parents again.
The story calls to mind the fact that, while our Lowertown Jewish families were sending their young men and women to fight the Nazi regime in Europe, our country was turning its back on immigration by their relatives. In 1939, Anselm was allowed into Ireland at the same time as Canada was refusing entry to the hundreds of men, women and children on board the SS St. Louis, leaving them to an uncertain fate in Europe.
This is a book filled with intimate family stories set against a wider social and historical context. It touches on Anselm’s life in prewar Austria and offers insights about members of his family. The author slowly uncovers truths kept hidden over the decades. The book is tough to read at times, with reminders of how neighbours turned on former friends, how governments manipulated information to stigmatize a group of people, and how countries around the world turned their backs on people seeking asylum. It is not always easy but it is definitely worth a read.