Ghosts of Home

In modern-day Ukraine, east of the Carpathian Mountains, there is an invisible city. Known as Czernowitz, the 'Vienna of the East' under the Habsburg empire, this vibrant Jewish-German Eastern European culture vanished after World War II; yet an idealized version lives on, suspended in the memories of its dispersed people and passed down to their children like a precious and haunted heirloom. In this original blend of history and communal memoir, Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer chronicle the city's survival in personal, familial, and cultural memory. They find evidence of a cosmopolitan culture of nostalgic lore; but also of oppression, shattered promises, and shadows of the Holocaust in Romania. Hirsch and Spitzer present the first historical account of Jewish Czernowitz in the English language and offer a profound analysis of memory's echo across generations.


[This] monumental book ... is a stunning marriage of intellectual curiosity and personal search. [It] reads with the poignancy of memoir, yet in a collective voice... The overarching authorial voice is nuanced and reflective but also informed.

"Pri's The World" 2010 04 07


Hirsch and Spitzer expose the complex layers that inform our understanding of the past.

"Jewish Book World" 2010 07 06


Unique ... Ghosts of Home collects the fragments of one place and provides us with an artifact that is as close as we will ever come to 'perfect rest.'

"Tikkun Magazine" 2010 11 10


An interesting volume.

"German Studies Review" 2011 06 03


Eminently readable... Hirsch's depiction of prewar Jewish life is masterful.

Norman Ravvin "Canadian Jewish News" 2012 04 26


The ability to observe, evaluate, and contextualize habits and specific objects is one of the greatest strengths of this book.

"Austrian History Yearbook" 2011 05 11