Author traces Jewish family history from Buenos Aires to Mattersburg

Author David Gulda has researched several countries and around 200 years of world history for his latest book, which he presented at the Literaturhaus Mattersburg, a literary venue. According to ORF, the book examines his family history but aims to be more than a collection of stories and personal fates.

Gulda traced the history of his mother and her ancestors, the Jewish Loew family, from Prague to Vienna and from Buenos Aires to Mattersburg. For a long time, his mother’s history was not discussed even within the family. “I looked for what was being kept silent about at home in our family in Vienna,” Gulda said.

For David and his brother Paul, a pianist like their father, the book is an attempt to write against forgetting. Gulda said their grandfather learned during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s that more or less all of the family still living in Europe had been exterminated.

Gulda said he could understand why his grandfather did not want to pass on this knowledge, perhaps to spare the family. The silence also had positive aspects, he said, allowing for a carefree childhood. Now 70, Gulda said he was better able to deal with these findings. “It is not a reproach that there was silence, but simply the recognition of a fact,” he said.