Eugene L. Pogany

In My Brother's Image is the extraordinary story of Eugene Pogany's father and uncle-identical twin brothers born in Hungary of Jewish parents but raised as devout Catholic converts until the Second World War unravelled their family. In eloquent prose, Pogany portrays how the Holocaust destroyed the brothers' close childhood bond: his father, a survivor of a Nazi internment camp, denounced Christianity and returned to the Judaism of his birth, while his uncle, who found shelter in an Italian monastic community during the war, became a Catholic priest. Even after emigrating to America the brothers remained estranged, each believing the other a traitor to their family's faith. This tragic memoir is a rich, moving family portrait as well as an objective historical account of the rupture between Jews and Catholics.

Eugene Pogany's father and uncle, identical twins, were born in Hungary of Jewish parents but raised by them as devout Catholic converts until World War II unravelled their family. Miklos, the author's father, was sent to Bergen-Belsen, a hell that led him to denounce Christian passivity in the face of the Holocaust and return to the Judaism of his birth. Gyorgy, a Catholic priest, was sheltered from the war in an Italian monastery by the renowned and saintly friar Padre Pio. Their mother, also interned as a Jew, walked into the Auschwitz gas chamber holding a crucifix to her breast.In My Brother's Image eloquently portrays how the Holocaust destroyed these brothers' close childhood bond. Each believing the other a traitor to their family's faith, they remained estranged even after emigrating to America, where they lived and worked only miles from each other. Filled with extraordinary scenes such as Miklos's Passover celebration with fellow prisoners in the camp, this tragic memoir encapsulates the drama of a family torn apart by the historical rupture between Jews and Catholics--even as it trains a wider, impartial lens on its causes and on the history of Hungary's Jews.… (meer)