When the Diamonds Were Gone: A Jewish Refugee Comes of Age in America in the 1940s

by Julian Padowicz

Overview

After a grueling and dramatic escape from occupied Poland in 1939, at age eight, Julian and his mother arrive in America in 1941 with big plans. Julian's beautiful, former socialite mother Barbara wants to write a memoir and regain her former social position. Julian just wants to fit his war-damaged psyche into the American way of life. As Barbara climbs her social ladder, she succeeds in opening for herself doors that few manage to open. In the process, she slams in Julian's face the very doors that other parents struggle to open for their children.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780897339193
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	07/01/2015
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Julian Padowicz is an award-winning author, screenwriter, and documentary filmmaker. He is the author of the memoirs Mother and Me: Escape from Warsaw 1939, which was Foreword Reviews' 2006 Gold winner for autobiography and memoir; A Ship in the Harbor; and Loves of Yulian; as well as the novels The Best Sunset in Venice and Writer’s Block. 

Editorial Reviews

"A sad and curious memoir that will make others with unhappy childhoods know they're not alone.” —Kirkus Reviews


“When the Diamonds Were Gone is a piece of literary magic.” —Douglas G. Hearle, author of Outsource


“Having escaped the Nazis in wartime Poland, young Julian grows up in New York and Connecticut where he tries to separate himself from his driven, domineering mother and live a ‘normal’ American life. Written with warm wit, this coming-of-age memoir reflects America in the 1940s and the experience of an immigrant youth trying his best to belong. His engaging, candid, often humorous story is of historical and cultural importance—and is just plain fun to read.” —Linda Collison, author of Looking for Redfeather



“It is nearly incomprehensible to imagine the hardships of Julian’s early years. But to overcome them and be able to write about the events with virtually no hint of resentment or bitterness is the work of a master. Cherish the man and his work.” —Bob Wirz, Wirz & Associates



“The ends of the circle meet: the story that began with an escape over the Carpathian mountains in Mother and Me now concludes in When the Diamonds Were Gone at the studios of Twentieth Century-Fox in L.A. Truly this journey should be on the big screen.” —Linda Merlino, author of Room of Tears



“When the Diamonds Were Gone is a captivating collage of silent panic attacks, fits of nervous laughter, and flashbacks of prepubescent infatuation. For Padowicz as an author, self-deprecating humor is not just a coping mechanism to make sense of his turbulent and adventurous childhood but also a poignant literary tool that sets his series apart from other Holocaust memoirs.”  —Marina Julia Neary, author of Martyrs & Traitors: A Tale of 1916

From the Publisher

2015-04-05
Padowicz (A Scandal in Venice, 2013, etc.) adds the memoir of his years as a refugee in the United States to his earlier works about his and his mother's escape from Poland during World War II. The author recounts one of the most difficult periods in any life: getting through school. Doomed from the beginning, he began in a French school in Warsaw, followed by a Brazilian school before coming to New York. Padowicz couldn't speak the language of any school he attended, and he possessed only rudimentary English when he started fourth grade at boarding school in 1942. With only the headmaster's wife to tutor him, he slowly picked up the language, but his difficulty focusing and finishing reading assignments would be lifelong challenges. Only his writing and storytelling talent got him through, as his popular Kip and Amanda books now attest. Padowicz speaks kindly of his mother and her admonitions to succeed and, above all, tell no one that he was Jewish. His best times and spurts of normalcy were holidays staying with his aunt and uncle, the caricaturist, Arthur Szyk, in New Canaan, Connecticut. Eventually, Padowicz's mother married a Frenchman, Pierre, and they moved to Montreal. A normal family life was not to be, and his mother's visits, now fewer and further between, invariably included suggestions, even bribes, that he get a nose job. It was not until college that he finally discovered his only weapon was a threat to join a temple. The author's accounts of his school days are fairly predictable, and his family life was nearly nonexistent. His one relationship, in the end, was long and unsatisfactory. He has dealt with his mother as most neglected children do, always loving and hoping, ever disappointed. A sad and curious memoir that will make others with unhappy childhoods know they're not alone.

Kirkus Reviews