Under the Same Roof: My Life as the Son of Holocaust Resisters

Description

Dr. Mark Henry Kinn grew up both searching for and running from his parents' tragic past. How do you live through a trauma that isn't even your own? How does a child live with the poignancy and sadness of a generation, following him to school, to work, and out into a world that doesn't understand? Kinn's mother, Sonia, evaded the Nazis by hiding in the forest, but she never forgot her murdered family. His father, Phil, joined the Russian resistance, but sneaked back into the ghetto to find his father and sisters. Sonia and Phil met in 1944 when both joined a secret caravan of Jews escaping from Eastern Europe; both were struggling to move past the memory of extreme brutality and overwhelming loss. As Dr. Kinn explains, "My sister and I were left with an apocalyptic sense that our parents' world had been uprooted, killed, destroyed. They thought they were hiding their past, protecting us from the Holocaust and its atrocities, but this made it worse. They rarely spoke about the Holocaust during our childhood yet it was there every day, in everything, omnipresent but never acknowledged, never explained." In stories pieced together from early childhood to adulthood, "Under the Same Roof" sensitively illustrates the impact of the Holocaust on second-generation survivors. "You kids have Holocaust on the brain," Kinn's mother would say when he asked her about her experience in the woods or his father's time in the resistance. This gentle and subtle memoir follows Mark Henry Kinn from a childhood full of secrets and unexpressed feelings (afraid of upsetting parents who had "been through so much") to an adulthood of trying both consciously and unconsciously, to heal his parents' pain by becoming a doctor. "Under the Same Roof" is about the consequences of unimaginable horror. It's about the struggle to discover an identity apart from an all-encompassing legacy of fear, anger, guilt and sadness. Told with great love for his heroic parents and a wish for a better life in the face of an inescapable past, "Under the Same Roof" is an insightful illustration of the consequences of intergenerational trauma.

Mark Henry Kinn was born in Brooklyn, New York, just five years after the end of WWII. As a child of survivors of the Holocaust, he was raised in the psychological aftermath of brutality and loss. Like many children of survivors, he sought a context for his parents' horrific experience and the existential threat of the atrocities they survived. Under the Same Roof was written as both a catharsis and a way of honoring his parents' strength. He describes his father as "an archetypal Jew, a devout warrior who blew up enemy railroads and killed Nazi soldiers." Believing fate drew him "back to the land of bedlam and blood," he studied medicine in Europe, at L'Universite Catholique de Louvain, before returning to New York City, where he received his medical degree from New York University. He practiced medicine for twenty-five years and retired in 2005, a respected and compassionate physician. Dr. Kinn lives in New York City with his wife, artist Hannah Kinn. He writes and speaks about his experience as a second-generation survivor.

"A wonderful read! The memoir "Under the Same Roof" by Mark Henry Kinn is a fascinating story of the life of a child of holocaust survivors/resisters. It becomes his own moving story of survival as he navigates through the ever present memories and meetings with other survivors that are part of his parents' world. His struggle is made more complex by his ambivalence to his religious Jewish upbringing. At the same time that it is the tale of a young man who struggles to separate himself from the pain of the brutal killings that were part of his parents' lives during World War II. It manages to include the difficult story of his parents at different points in his own life story. What becomes clear from the book he has written is that the story of his parents is an integral part of his own identity; the stories of their difficult lives insert themselves into his life at unexpected moments. This book is an important contribution to the literature that substantiates and serves to illuminate some of the scientific studies of the biological effects of trauma on the offspring of Holocaust survivors and resisters... a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is a compelling and well-written story that keeps the reader engaged and curious about the next adventure in the life of the author." Susan Heuman PhDVisiting Scholar, Columbia University- Harriman Institute "The single most striking quality of "Under the Same Roof" is its honesty, which comes though not just in the big things but in the little daily moments as well - which I think is rare and brave. The tone is modest and personal, informal, quiet. The ending is moving and fine and satisfying. This book covers a lot of ground, a whole life. It is a serious and soul-searching memoir. I loved it." Dr. Nahma Sandrow, Professor of Cultural History at CUNYAuthor of Vagabond Stars: A World History of Yiddish Theater