Unconquered: A Tale of a Girl’s Survival During the Holocaust
Lucie Burian Liebman
(Merrimack Media)
Review by Alice Weiss
Sometimes the things that give us
misery are also the very things that save us in the end. Nowhere is
this more true than in Lucie Burian Liebman’s “Unconquered,” an
account of a three year trek by the Burian family from Vienna through
Prague to New York, 1938-1941. . Starting out in Vienna on the day of
the Anschluss, the Lucie places herself as the ten year old daughter
of a successful businessman who has been aware for some time of the
Nazi’s intentions towards the Jews and who has provided money and a
plan in the event. In spare and prose Liebman relates sometimes
breathless accounts of fleeing Nazis, ducking them,and surviving but
with a father and mother so cold and cruel they rival the Germans in
their impact.
Burian’s underlying theme is
enunciated by reference to the William Ernest Henley poem,
“Invictus.” No matter what horror or menace, or punishment, her
is head is ‘bloody but unbowed.’ It was an early lesson, a
demanding and dictatorial father and removed mother. Her brother,
four years older but much less stubborn and independent was the
person she protected and comforted. And there was a nanny who gave
warmth and love. Strangely, a recipe for survival.
That the family was never interned in
a concentration camp or rounded up and shot is due at least in part
to luck. For example a scene in Prague: Lilie is walking to the JCC
where she goes daily once Jews are expelled from schools, for sports
and other training. She sees the yard is crowded with people falling
over. Nazi soldiers are shooting into the crowd. Two of her cousins
are in the crowd, but bodies fall on them and they, as well as Lucie,
survive. If she had been there earlier in the day. . . However the
survival of the Burians is due to the persistence and intelligence
and clear vision of her father, Theodore.
Survival appears to have been his
only goal. Thus the scene in the Spanish train car where two Nazi
officers entered the Burians compartment and took turns raping Lucie
while her parents literally looked the other way. Although she
doesn’t say this one, wonders if the virginity of the thirteen year
old girl was the price they paid for safety getting to Portugal.
Speaking though, as the child she was Lucie complains that her
parents failed to comfort her or indicate in any way that they were
concerned about her welfare. Except of course that they made sure
she obtained an abortion once they got to New York. That she says is
the only intelligent thing her parents did. The interesting thing
about the book is that you both agree with her, as parents, and don’t
agree with her. Despite details that make you see them as the
harshest and coldest of parents, you end up with a grudging respect
for their perseverance and coolness in the face of frightful people
and events.
It sound weird to say this but aside
from its horrors this is an easy read. Ms. Burian is always careful
that we see her adventurous spirit and the joie de vivre that
keep her relatively intact throughout the journey. And she does give
us ample evidence that the unpleasant, unloving father is the medium
of both their survival and the sense that it was living with him as parent the first ten years that
necessitated her developing the distancing skills that enabled her to
survive intact.
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