Sam Gronner Book Talk & Signing, adults

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In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day presented by the Tenafly Library Friends

Loss and Legacy by local author Sam Gronner

Ilmenau is a small town in the German state of Thuringia. By 1929 Helene and Samuel Gronner have reached economic success and social prominence.

But within a year, longtime customers and neighbors of the Jewish couple begin to shun them. Following local elections, Nazi ideology grips the town, prompting a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses. At sixteen and after anti-Jewish harassment, Jochen, the son of Helene and Samuel, is sent to Palestine in order to pursue his education toward a degree in mechanical engineering.

Then World War intervenes, and communication with the family left behind virtually ceases. Not until the Allied victory in 1945 does Jochen learn that his parents were killed after being rounded up and deported.

With the help of a trove of documents, photos and memorabilia, and aided by extensive personal research and collaboration with members of his extended family, the author juxtaposes his own childhood memories alongside his father's unrelenting quest: to reclaim the family's inheritance stolen by the anti-Semitic laws, and to restore the Gronner reputation in Ilmenau—the family name that the Nazis sought to obliterate through murder.

Find the entire book description and learn more about the author at https://lossandlegacy.com/the-book