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 unraveled 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. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.