Crossing the Borders of Time: A True Story of War, Exile, and Love Reclaimed
Leslie Maitland
Other Press, Apr 17 2012, $27.95
ISBN: 9781590514962
German Jew Janine loved her life in Freiberg. However, in 1938, the Nazis forced fifteen year old Janine and her family to flee across the border settling in Mulhouse, France. There she met her first love nineteen year old Catholic law student Roland Arcieri. Her family fled to Gray and then Lyon as the Nazis annex Alsace Lorraine. In 1941 in Lyon she and Roland meet again and remain attracted to one another. One year later, Janine and her family flee to Marseilles and then America. Unbeknownst to Janine, her father and brother insured she would not meet Roland again as they intercept his letters. Janine marries a philandering Ayn Rand advocate and one of their children Leslie Maitland supported by her brother Gary and her husband Dan begins the odyssey of finding her mom’s first love who lives in Montreal.
This is a superior memoir with an intriguing quest in which the vividly harrowing descriptions of the Jewish plight during WWII overshadow the forbidden love affair and the failed marriage. Timely with the insight into refugee displacement and exile due to war, this is a triumph of love and survivor though it took five decades for the former to catch up to the latter.
Harriet Klausner
Leslie Maitland
Other Press, Apr 17 2012, $27.95
ISBN: 9781590514962
German Jew Janine loved her life in Freiberg. However, in 1938, the Nazis forced fifteen year old Janine and her family to flee across the border settling in Mulhouse, France. There she met her first love nineteen year old Catholic law student Roland Arcieri. Her family fled to Gray and then Lyon as the Nazis annex Alsace Lorraine. In 1941 in Lyon she and Roland meet again and remain attracted to one another. One year later, Janine and her family flee to Marseilles and then America. Unbeknownst to Janine, her father and brother insured she would not meet Roland again as they intercept his letters. Janine marries a philandering Ayn Rand advocate and one of their children Leslie Maitland supported by her brother Gary and her husband Dan begins the odyssey of finding her mom’s first love who lives in Montreal.
This is a superior memoir with an intriguing quest in which the vividly harrowing descriptions of the Jewish plight during WWII overshadow the forbidden love affair and the failed marriage. Timely with the insight into refugee displacement and exile due to war, this is a triumph of love and survivor though it took five decades for the former to catch up to the latter.
Harriet Klausner
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