It is hard to put into words what a person like me feels after reading an account like this. This woman bared her soul for the world so that we can understand what happened to an entire family, during the horrific terror that was brought down on the Jewish race. In these types of stories, we have different elements: the ones that did not make it, but then there are the others that survived the camps but never recovered from the horrors. On the other side, we have some of the blessings; some that escaped entirely to other areas, like America. Then some went into hiding but lived in terror that they would be found. Finally, the ones that survived and recovered enough to go on with their lives, but regrettably not untouched. Unfortunately, life teaches us that it takes all kinds to make up the world, but it is men like Hitler and his monsters that ruin it for the rest of us. I have no sympathy for any person that was a part of those actions. In my opinion, every single one of them got off easy!!! Even if they suffered the same fate, it would not be enough.

Heart Songs: A Holocaust Memoir (Holocaust Survivor True Stories WWII Book 4) by Barbara Gilford is a poignant memoir of a family that survived the Holocaust and she captures the ambiance of the pre-war and pre-Shoah Moravian bourgeoisie with great expertise. The author speaks about how her grandmother had to flee to Italy to escape the Nazi occupation. Barbara Gilford's discovery of her grandmother Clara’s letters written to her father gave her the chance to connect with the missing years. The letters gave her glimpses of not only her grandmother’s story but also those of her Great-Uncle Norbert, her Aunt Gretl, and Uncle Hugo Spitzer as well. They took her right into the heart of Europe, San Donato, and straight into her grandmother’s heart and spirit. Heart Songs throws light on the Holocaust survivors and those who lost their lives, and how it affected the psychological, historical, and familial aspects of society. It is a story of loss, pain, grief, strength, resilience, triumphs, and disappointments. Barbara Gilford's personal journey gives insights into the relatives she never met, and she introduces her family, their tragedies, weaknesses, and strengths to readers. It is a compelling memoir, heartwarming yet heartbreaking, and also shows the role Italy played in the life of the Jews during World War II. The book takes readers back in time to World War II and the atrocities unleashed against the Jews, and also depicts their lives after her father immigrated to the United States. The love and the family bonding are palpable in the author's words and she seamlessly weaves three generations of her family into the memoir, making Heart Songs a memorable book.

Do yourself a favor and read Heart Songs: A Holocast Memoir by Barbara Gilford. Amid all the crisis cries surrounding us in these troubled times, it brought me sweetly back to what is important and what is enduring. This is not a book that dwells on the horrors of the Holocaust; it is a book about how both love and pain transcend generations. While cleaning out an old blue cabinet, the author discovered letters written to her beloved father by his mother, Clara. Although her father secured a visa and escaped to England and then the USA, his mother was trapped. Desperate to escape the Nazis, she managed to travel to Italy. Despite her deprivations, the letters to her son are full of love and hope, not anger and fear. During a difficult time in my life, my own grandmother wrote to me every week. These simple letters taught me unconditional love. Love that is passed down through generations and is an immutable force. It can survive neglect; it can survive a virus and can survive even the gas chambers of Nazi Germany. Read this book, it has a message for you about how love endures even in a time of many perils.

I loved Heart Songs by Barbara Buchsbaum Gilford. The book drew me in from the first sentence and tugged at my heart until the very last word. It's tender, sweet, sad, and beautifully written. It's an enduring love story - we all need that right now, don't we? Do yourself a favor and read this book!

I just finished reading Heart Songs, a beautiful little gem of a book. It is a family story unlike others I have read because it reflects on old letters that the author discovered that help to tell the true story of her relatives during WWII. It was emotional to read about her longing to know her family. She shares beautiful fantasies of meeting relatives who perished in the Holocaust and yearning to have conversations with them. Clearly discovering more about them has had a huge impact on her life. This is not just another Holocaust memoir – I highly recommend it.

Barbara Gilford grew up as the second generation influenced by the losses caused by the Holocaust in her family. Her father, John (Hans) Buchsbaum as a young man fled his native country Czechoslovakia in June 1939, after having been warned by an acquaintance about his imminent arrest by the Gestapo. His mother Clara Buchsbaum, her daughter Gretl and her family did not manage to escape to freedom. Clara lived for a period in the village San Donato Val di Comino in Italy. Gretl, her husband Hugo and their daughter Susi stayed in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, until they were taken to Treblinka and killed there. Clara was arrested by the Gestapo in April 1944 and according to an eyewitness, she was last seen when she was about to enter the gas chamber in Auschwitz in September the same year. Can you miss family members you have never met? It seems that this is highly possible. Barbara Gilford describes a childhood where her deceased grandmother still managed to exert a loving influence in her family. Barbara's father had kept the letters from his correspondence with his mother through the difficult years 1939-1944, and the words of these letters somehow managed to penetrate the abyss between life and death, between time and eternity. The grandmother's love for her son and her daughter-in-law whom she never met is expressed beautifully and sincerely in her writings. Barbara's father assured her that this love also encompassed her, as a member of the Buchsbaum family. Gretl, Barbara's aunt, and her cousin Susi lived on in Barbara's heart as she grew up, as playmates and loved ones she wanted to support and sustain through their ordeals. A breath from pre-war Europe frequently seems to have colored her childhood imagination and dreams, where the Buchsbaum family had their place in a part of European society appreciating education, wealth and high cultural activities like art and intellectual achievement, as well as actively pursuing the transfer of all these values to their descendants. A heritage of mingled love and sorrow can be a heavy burden as a child. And Barbara describes how she as an only child raised in both the U.S. and in Europe struggles to grasp the unfathomable; how such true and nourishing love, with an immense power to sustain those it seeks to uphold, may co-exist with such brutal degenerating forces as killing, maiming, deprivation, the ultimate loss. How to reconcile such opposing, penetrating forces in a human life? It may possibly be done, but not easily. Barbara's father couldn't complete this daunting task, possibly due to the rawness of his wounds caused by his sudden separation from his family and, in particular, his mother. It is the mature woman freed of the more youthful cares of life, like forging a career and raising a family, who can continue this task. After finding her grandmother's letters, Barbara travels to see the sites where her grandmother and the rest of her family lived and died. This painful odyssey is thoroughly described in this book. The quiet conclusion may be that processing such a heavy inheritance may be a long-lasting process, perhaps for several generations to come. The descendants of Holocaust sufferers seem to inherit a need, almost an obligation, to be a witness on behalf of their loved ones who couldn't escape, to tell the story those who had to carry the burden of anti-Semitism and war to the bitter end. The message that no human life should just disappear in oblivion like they never existed, seems to be the essence of this heritage. And this is what Heart Songs. A Holocaust Memoir does. Although no tombstones may be found with Clara, Gretl and Susi's names, from now on their lives, their loves, their sorrows and cares are accounted for, granting them their rightful place in the gallery of human lives.

I was lucky to be sent and be able to read Gilford’s book Heart Songs, a Holocaust Memoir even before its publication. It is a work of deep love and devotion, and a very well written one. It is rich in historical documentation, recreating the lost cultural milieu and the atmosphere of pre-war and pre-Shoah Moravian bourgeoisie. I was most impressed with the Author’s burning desire to reconnect with the part of her roots she couldn’t meet directly, especially her paternal grandmother Oma Clara. Granny Clara stands out as a giant figure, withstanding horror and death. An all-giving Mom, forever feeding even generations to come by way of immense love for her son, cascading through inscrutable channels onto the Author, her family and descendants. As Gilford tells us, “children inhale information and become expert weathermen, taking the emotional temperature of the adults around them”, the same as she herself happened to, “press my cheek against his [=father’s] wool uniform jacket and inhale[d] his scent”. I am a second-generation Jew after the Shoah generation, same as Barbara, and I myself wrote a book about my family, though partly fictional. My grandparents were lucky to escape the nazi lager, but suffered the heavy consequences of fascist persecution. So, reading the book, I could follow exactly the fusion and mingling between the Author’s wishful imagination, and real feelings from her family transmitted to her since her birth (and perhaps earlier), and absorbed with the milk, long before actually learning about the facts behind them. My father’s almost total reluctance to speak about his life in the years that he had to remain hidden in the countryside near Bergamo, and to address all the rest of his feelings and fears, also match Gilford’s narration.

When an only child’s imaginary friends include her unknown first cousin, Zuzana (Susi), and her unknown grandmother, Oma Clara, both lost in the Holocaust, we know we are about to read a heartfelt true story. But not only. This story is much, much more. This story sings because it’s written by an extraordinary writer, a journalist with a passion for research, an artist with a passion for life, and a psychotherapist with a passion to know deeply the heart. Heart Songs takes us on an odyssey through the author’s childhood, to her grandmother’s last letters, to her father’s monumental efforts to save his mother, to the weaving together of three generations whose legacy transcends their tragic deaths. Heart Songs is filled with longing, loss and grief, yes, but also enduring love.

What a uniquely compelling story Barbara Gilford has brought to the much-needed canon of Holocaust memoirs. Starting with a discovery of letters, she takes us on a journey filled with her family’s tragedies and triumphs during history’s darkest days, finally emerging in the redeeming power of love, faith and memory.

Heart Songs, A Holocaust Memoir, is enthralling, impossible to put down. It is a heart wrenching, poignant, and suspenseful story about Barbara Gilford’s family - a family consumed by the Holocaust. Gilford makes us care deeply about the fate of everyone in the Buchsbaum family. You will marvel at Oma Clara’s unimaginable tenacity, optimism, and boundless love. Heart Songs illustrates how bad decisions during the Holocaust could prove fatal. It also makes clear that high intelligence and foresight were not enough to survive the SS and the Gestapo. You had to be lucky. Gilford’s poetic prose and trained psychological perceptions about Holocaust survivors and victims make for a compelling read. When you finish Heart Songs, A Holocaust Memoir, your heart aches to join with Gilford to mourn the loss of a family you never knew. Like Barbara Gilford, may we all “carry the Buchsbaums from Ostrava” with us.

Barbara Gilford’s book, Heart Songs, A Holocaust Memoir, beautifully bridges the Holocaust story of her father, grandmother and Buchsbaum relatives and her own story, growing up in a family affected by the Holocaust. This is a story of love and loss. But it is also a story of longing: Gilford longs to embrace the family she never knew; she longs to have a conversation with her father about how he felt at critical points in the story she only learns after his death; she longs to claim a positive Jewish identity; and mostly she longs to tell the story of her relatives’ lives and resilience. As she ends her book, “In the end, their lives and their individual, unique selves cannot be eclipsed by the tragedy and circumstances of their deaths. They exist together in life and in death and their memory lives on in our very cells and souls.” Here, Gilford embodies the holiness of the Kaddish and the reader becomes part of the "congregation" that recites it with her.