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Book Review: Journey to Nowhere by Eva Figes

Eugene Schulman - 3/24/2009

It is hard to imagine that when Eva Figes dreamed up the title of this memoir she didn't have Samuel Butler's "Erewhon" in mind. Though Butler's book was a satire on social morals and an attack on religion, the reversed spelling of its title implied that this utopian world does not, could not, really exist. Figes, writing about Israel, seems to play on the word, showing that the "promised land" is truly nowhere. It is not the utopia everyone has been led to believe.

"Journey to Nowhere" is the memoir of a secular Jewish woman of a certain age (nee 1932) which tells of her existence in Hitler's prewar Berlin, and her family's escape to England in 1939. It also tells of the experiences of the family housekeeper, Edith, who remained behind and survived the war by hiding out and "going underground." At the end of the war, in 1945, with the future of concentration camp survivors hanging on the whims of the victors trying to decide how and where to send these displaced persons (DPs), Edith is seduced by a representative of the Yeshuv (Jewish community in pre-state Israel) to settle in Palestine. This is the story of her disappointment in the place for "a people without a land in a land without people."

Along the way, we learn about the life of a bourgeois family in Berlin, the restrictions imposed on Jews after the Nuremburg laws were invoked and, then, once escaped to England, about life for immigrants in the north of London. No less interesting, from a psychological point of view, is the relationship between the author and her mother. Embittered by having to become the caretaker of the family while her husband was, first, incarcerated in a German labor camp and, finally, in England obliged to do military service in the special Pioneer Corps, the mother took out all of her frustrations on her pre-menstrual daughter. A relationship that never healed, even after the return of the father.

One day, having no idea what may have become of her, the family receives a letter from Edith, explaining that she is unhappy in Israel and would like to take up her old place as family housekeeper, if they would have her. Mother, having become the matron of nice bourgeois house in the suburbs, and hoping to regain some of the social status she had in prewar Berlin, decides that having a maid would contribute to that goal, and so accepts Edith's request. Young Eva, with only vague memories of Edith, impatiently awaits her arrival, meanwhile observing with displeasure the spartan preparations being made by her mother for Edith's accommodations in the household.

When Edith finally arrives she is given a tiny room furnished with only a bed and a washstand. She is evidently not expected to be able to share the bathroom, nor any of the other household facilities with the family. Except for her chores she will not be allowed in the family rooms and will take her meals alone in the kitchen. No one, other than Eva, shows any interest in Edith's interim existence since the family's departure from Berlin. All that seems to interest them is that they now have a maid again. It does not occur to them that Edith's desire to return is to become part of the family she once served.

During the mother's shopping outings during the day, Eva befriends the shy Edith and gradually coaxes from her the story of how she survived in Berlin and eventually got to Palestine and what she found there. All this serves as the background for a build up to the real story Figes wants to tell: a condemnation of Israel and an explosion of the myths surrounding its founding.

Figes boldly argues that Israel was a product of US foreign policy and continuing anti-Semitism. She paints a devastating picture of how Harry Truman pushed for the creation of Israel in order to bolster his re-election campaign, to the dismay of the British who were attempting to establish an accommodation between the Arabs and Jews for sharing Palestine peacefully. The result of this history is what we are suffering today. But, it is better left to Eva Figes to tell her version. As a novelist, she has the ability to tell it in a page turning manner. I think everyone who has any interest in the problems of today's Middle East would do well to read this fascinating story. This book is a welcome addition to the growing revisionist literature about Israel-Palestine.