Hugo Gryn
Chasing Shadows

Introduction by Naomi Gryn

Some years ago, ashamed of my father's rather tired tallit, or prayer shawl, I bought him a new one - a grand affair, creamy white with gold trim. My father was thrilled with my gift, but instead of wearing it draped over his head as I'd envisioned, he scrunched it up and wore it like a football scarf. Undaunted, the following year I tried to replace it with a different design - much slimmer and pure white - which, I explained, would looked good with the white robes he wore on the Jewish High Holy Days - Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Dutifully he succumbed to my whim, but as soon as Yom Kippur was over, he reverted to the white and gold one which he wore, scrunched up, for the rest of his life.

After he died, I asked for his body to be wrapped and buried in this oversized tallit, now soaked in his prayers and solitary thoughts. When I first saw the cover of Chasing Shadows - off-white with his name, Hugo Gryn, embossed in gold letters - the symbolism was not lost on me. The publication of this book represents the conclusion of my mourning for my father; it is my final burial rite.

Naomi Gryn is currently on tour

Biography

The death of Rabbi Hugo Gryn in 1996 was an occasion of great sadness for millions who had enjoyed his contributions to Radio Four's THE MORAL MAZE. Few though knew of the extraordinary life he had led before becoming a highly respected London rabbi. This autobiographical work, written at two different points in his life, offers a compelling portrait of one of Britain's best-loved spiritual figures and broadcasters.

Hugo Gryn was born in the Carpathian town of Berehovo, in what was then Czechoslovakia, in 1930. Berehovo was a fairly prosperous market town with a large Jewish community of which the Gryn family were active members. In 1938, the Hungarians moved in and the life of the town and the Gryn family changed for ever. In 1944, Hugo and his family were forced into the ghetto in Berehovo and six weeks later transported to Auschwitz. Separated from his mother and brother, Hugo and his father were used as slave labourers and were lucky to survive two death marches.

After liberation, Hugo Gryn returned home to find a town whose vibrant Jewish community had been destroyed, a town where there remained only 'a small handful of survivors, dispirited, most of them waiting in vain for the return of other members of their families' Miraculously, one of those survivors was his mother; he brought her the tragic news that his father had died just a few days after the arrival of Allied troops.

In 1951, while training in Cincinnati to become a rabbi, Gryn started writing about his experiences in the camps. Though he abandoned the narrative abruptly, the pages were discovered in a desk drawer by his daughter, Naomi. In 1989, she had persuaded him to make an emotional return to Berehovo to make a film about the experience; and later to begin writing about his childhood, family and experiences during the war.

These two pieces of writing, brought together and edited by Naomi Gryn, make up a wonderful account of a remarkable life and a vanished world.

Reviews

'Everyone should read this book. In the moral maze of life he was a guide to give thanks for'
The Daily Mail

'It is remarkable how little bitterness there is in this account. Hugo's sunny temperament and essential goodness inform the whole book'
The Evening Standard

'This book should have as wide an audience as possible…It highlights the danger of revisionist accounts of the Holocaust and throws into relief the reality of individual suffering in ethnic cleansing. Most importantly it shows, in Gryn's words, that "Evil is real". So is good. Much of this goodness is personified by Gryn himself'
The Daily Telegraph