Finding Home: Hungary, 1945 by Dean Cycon

Finding Home: Hungary, 1945 Reviews

• 
  KayG

  How have I not thought of the treatment of the survivors of concentration camps once the war was over? The Jews had been rounded up, sent away. People then moved into their homes, took over their businesses, used their belongings. What happened when the few survivors returned?
  
  Despite the horrors of Auschwitz and the loss of her family, young Eva survived. She found her strength by concentrating on her dream of being a pianist. In the death camp she practiced in her head and played an imaginary piano, hoping to be prepared to attend the Academy of Music in Budapest when she returned to what had been her home in Hungary.
  
  The antisemitic feelings did not end with the war. The Iron Cross continued their torment of Jews, carrying it out in a more discreet manner. The treatment of Eva and her fellow survivors was difficult, dangerous, and frightening. Eva’s devotion to her music was moving, and the evolving events were riveting. I’m grateful to have experienced this touching and memorable novel.
  
  Netgalley
• 
  Karla Jay

  This book follows 19-year-old Eva Fleiss, who wants nothing more after losing almost everyone in WWII, to return to her Hungarian village and finally restart her life.
  This novel examines the question, what did survivors endure once they returned to their devastated lives after surviving so much?
  This is a heart-wrenching story of Auschwitz survivors longing for home, who are forced to create the fabric of new lives woven from brittle threads of suffering, continued loss, and fear, and the hope that acceptance and the power of music might heal them in the end.
  Highly recommended!
  
  
  
• 
  Christine

  Finding Home can be both literally and figuratively speaking understood. Both nuances equally essential for the well being of any person. This novel lets out a flow of conflicting feelings, all powerful, disturbing, angering, though showing a lot of strengths in human beings. Unfortunately, strengths are not always to be taken positively... This novel illustrates a period not so much written about: what happened to Jewish people when they returned home? A home, confiscated by the Germans, sold a penny a piece. Did they get it back? Not so easy, new laws, old laws not rewritten yet... However, the most overpowering concept is the fact that these rescapees were mostly not accepted, either overtly or not so. This novel also strongly illustrates the overwhelming feeling of guilt: the trainmaster, for instance, could not refuse the deportation trains, how could he ? Fear over himself, his family, he had to obey; others, bystanders, also scared, how can one judge them (plenty enough to bear a judgement on!)? Seeing these Jewish people coming back revived or alighted their guilt. Some still not daring help the newly come back...
  I was aghast, distressed at the ominous and prevalent antisemitism still existing after the war, I was aghast and distressed at what this novel showed me. Extremely well written, with music underlying every word, memory, hope. A unique experience in human history. A must read, definitely! Highly recommended!
  I received a complimentary ARC of this novel from NetGalley and I am leaving voluntarily an honest review.
• 
  Susan Mather Barone

  “How do we return home when home no longer exists?” Dean Cycon asked in his debut novel, “Finding Home (Hungary, 1945).” His work of historical fiction grew out of research and interviews he conducted in Hungary and the U.S. about what about happened to Holocaust survivors when they returned to their communities after World War II. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum site had a page that discussed the effects and aftermath of the Holocaust on survivors:
  
  “After liberation, many Jewish survivors feared to return to their former homes because of the antisemitism (hatred of Jews) that persisted in parts of Europe and the trauma they suffered. Some who returned home feared for their lives. In postwar Poland, for example, there were a number of pogroms (violent anti-Jewish riots).”
  
  Cycon created a similar world to dramatize the truth he found in his research. The novel opened with the return of six Jewish people from Laszlo, Hungary: the teenage Eva Fleiss, a pianist; Yossel Roth, a baker; Oskar Lazar, a butcher; Mendel and Herschel Fischer, two farm workers; and Naftali Nachman, an orthodox Hassid. They were all who remained of the 300 Jews from Laszlo. Each lost loved ones and friends. Instead of riding in a passenger car, they were riding in a cattle car on the train, again treated as less than human. When they arrived home, they were met with police and dogs, and the sight of former neighbors and friends who had ushered them onto trains going to Hell. World War II may have ended, but Cycon showed throughout the story how an internal war still raged in many. The townspeople fought against a fictional foe, a scapegoat for all the tragedies the war visited on them.
  
  The five men and this young woman could not return to their homes and businesses. Other people have taken them over. The Hassid Naftali returned to Kosveg, but his village lay in ruins. By law, none were seen as Hungarians despite having been born there. They had returned to the scene where a great crime had been committed against them and they had no justice. They had been trapped in camps and now were trapped in a hotel.
  
  While at Auschwitz, Eva stayed sane by practicing on an imaginary keyboard. She wanted to go home, to play her piano, and to prepare for the Ferenc Liszt Academy. She disciplined her mind to focus on the music. She expected the return of her piano teacher, Professor Aladar Sandor, who would continue their lessons. But first, Eva wanted to practice on her piano, the Bosendorfer. She didn’t realize that her father, Jacob Fleiss, had signed the deed over to the mayor of Laszlo, Ferenc Kodaly, for safekeeping before they left. He didn’t want his home plundered (which happened to so many others) after the Jewish deportation.
  
  Despite Eva telling the mayor’s wife who she was, Greta Kodaly did not believe her. She told her the Jews were all dead. She stood in the doorway wearing Eva’s dead mother’s dress and jewelry. (Her mother died before the deportation.) She refused her entry into her own home, but did ask for proof from Eva about the condition of the Bosendorfer piano. Greta came across as a selfish, entitled woman, and I truly hated her at the start of the novel. She had always wanted these nice things and didn’t want to return the house and possessions. She agreed to let Eva play her piano in exchange for cleaning services. Her friends told her she should get something out of the arrangement. I was incensed by her callousness. None of these luxuries were hers.
  
  The baker Yossel agreed to work under Krauss who took over his bakery. He wanted peace. A practicing Jew, he taught Eva how to make Challah bread. He remained positive and kept to the teachings from the Torah to guide his life. He chose life. He shared the Jewish traditions of Shabbos/the Sabbath with the three men and Eva each Friday. They lit the candles to dispel the darkness, prayed, and ate a meal together. Yossel worked at the bakery under Krauss, but Oskar wasn’t welcomed in the same way as the butcher. Oskar held onto bitterness at first. He had nothing left. His wife and children were gone. But Oskar agreed to stay positive for Eva. He and Yossel wanted to help her achieve her goal of going to Liszt Academy.
  
  Yossel wanted to heal all the brokenness he saw in Laszlo, but Laszlo was far from ready to heal. Many of the townspeople were afraid of the Jews. They thought the Jews started the war and that they returned to cause trouble. Mostly, they feared the Jews would take back the townspeople’s ill-gotten gains. For some, fear, hatred, and greed became a festering wound within their souls. Some believed the Jews were living in Russia, or that those in Laszlo had communist sympathies and wanted to help the Russians take over Hungary. Not everyone believed in the existence of the concentration camps.
  
  Despite WWII’s end, antisemitism remained deeply embedded in people’s hearts and minds. For so long, the Nazi propaganda machine had spewed lies about the Jews. The people of Laszlo heard all these terrible things and eventually believed lies as truth. They said they stole from their employees. People told tales about the Jews using the blood of Christians in their rituals. Some believed the Jews hid treasures, too, and Cycon wrote about the White Stag scouts, a group of Hungarian children, who went to former Jewish-occupied lands to find the treasure. Their main target became the forbidden Brick Factory, the site of a pogrom.
  
  Some of the community members showed their wounded and contrite hearts. They deeply regretted the wrong they had been a part of and felt the guilt, shame, and mental suffering. The station master Josef revisited the deportation in his mind every time the Special Trains carrying displaced persons arrived at the station. He remembered his neighbors, his friends, and how he led them trains that led to their deaths. He drank to excess and saw terrible visions of night trains. Officer Miklos’ mind also remained haunted by what another police officer would do in his place in Kosveg to the Hassidic Jewish community.
  
  Eva’s return to music helped her forge a new path and open a channel of healing as a gift from herself to others in and around her. The professor’s piano concerto for the music of the spheres echoed scientist Johannes Kepler in the novel. He believed the Sun, Moon, and other planets emitted music felt only by the soul and not heard by the ear. Eva realized that the odd pieces she practiced were meant to prepare her for carrying on this important work. When she played the piano, she touched the hearts of all who listened. And as she became stronger in performing this piano concerto, she sensed something supernatural happening. She could hear the music everywhere around her. She also began to see how she could redefine the meanings of home and family. Eva worked through trauma and found a new way forward. She at first did not want to be anyone’s hope for a better tomorrow, but as she continued her training and saw music’s effects on audiences, she gained renewed purpose for continuing to choose life.
  
  As I read the novel, I remembered something I recently heard in a lecture given by History and politics professor, Dr. Larry P. Arrn, the president of Hillsdale College. He said historians writing on events and novelists have something in common. They can place readers in the middle of actions that happened in the past otherwise inaccessible to them. Some historical accounts make it seem as if the people experiencing those moments together in the same room, not miles apart. The reality is that they had no way of predicting the future of their actions. And they didn’t always know what was happening in the world around them. The Internet or cell phones weren’t available as far back as World War II. They couldn’t have foreseen what would happen while making decisions. Historical fiction provides a way to teach us about the past while also entertaining us. The novelist and the historian reveal to us hard truths about human nature. Dr. Arrn said,
  
  “Poetry is liberated from reality in a way that history can’t be, but then to be convincing there has to be some logic in it that makes you think that it’s showing you something about reality.”
  
  “Finding Home (Hungary, 1945)” did this very well. This is a work of historical fiction and fantasy, a novel and an epic poem about a people who suffered and survived the Holocaust only to return and find people still infected with the disease of hate and prejudice. Some characters embraced the teachings of Judaism, some did not, but all were drawn together, an ancient community in a “continuum of suffering.”
  
  Cycon credited his daughter Aliya, who is a musician, and his daughter Sarah for giving him insights into the music world and “a young woman’s interior landscape.” He gave the reader just enough backstory and description to activate the theater of the reader’s mind. Several of his sentences sang poetically, but I cannot quote them here until the book is published, so I will return to this story again to do so. I couldn’t put the novel down for long and the historical information within made me want to do my own research online. As I read the last page, I cried and deemed this the best literary fiction of 2023.
• 
  Bobbi

  Actul Rating: 4.75
  
  I received an advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you NetGalley and the author for providing me a copy to this wonderful book.
  
  This novel was an absolutely heartbreaking read that kept me turning the pages. From the very first page to the end, it carried a weight that left a lasting impact. Even between reading sessions, I found myself immersed in thoughts about the story, the power of music, and its parallels to today's political climate in the US. While acknowledging that we cannot equate the experiences of the LGBTQIA+ and trans community with those of the Jewish community, the novel skillfully explores themes of extremism, fascism, discrimination, racism, and the destructive force of lies and propaganda. It is for these reasons that I rate this book 5/5 for being thought-provoking. This is a novel that will stay with me for a long time.
  
  Having delved into both nonfiction and fiction books about World War II, I noticed that most of them focus on wartime events and rarely touch upon the aftermath or the return of survivors to their hometowns. This WW2 novel set in Hungary stands out because it addresses what happened after the war. It was naive of me to assume that prejudice, discrimination, and violence towards the Jewish community would magically disappear with the end of the war.
  
  In the author's note, he expressed doubt about his right to write a story about Jewish survivors of concentration camps. However, I'm glad he chose to write this novel because the literature about the Holocaust needed this particular story. I wholeheartedly recommend this book!
  
  
  Enjoyment: 4.5/5
  I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book because I'm fascinated by the time period and have a deep interest in both nonfiction and fiction works about World War II. It evoked strong emotions in me, often a mixture of sadness and anger. The only aspect of the plot I didn't connect with as much was the 'Music of Spheres.'
  
  Plot: 4.5/5
  The plot of 'Finding Home' was simple yet executed brilliantly. We primarily follow Eva's journey of returning from Auschwitz concentration camp and her attempts to regain her place at the Academy as a pianist. The story also intertwines with a few subplots involving two men who returned with Eva. The seamless switch between perspectives never detracted from the overall narrative.
  
  One scene that stood out to me was when Eva played her music for the Jewish sex workers. There was something deeply healing about their shared understanding and their collective efforts to move forward. You could genuinely feel the healing process unfolding within Eva as she finally connected with others from her community after feeling isolated upon her return home.
  
  
  Characters: 4/5
  Although I initially struggled to connect with Eva, I eventually felt a stronger bond with her towards the last quarter of the book. I wished to feel that connection earlier on. However, I found Yossel and Oskar to be fascinating characters, offering diverse perspectives that added depth to the story.
  
  
  Thought Provoking: 5/5
  I already touched on this point in the beginning, but to reiterate, this is story that will stay with you long after you've read it.
  
  Ease of Reading: 5/5
  As someone with dyslexia, I rate books based on their readability, and this book flowed seamlessly for me!
  
  
  World building: 5/5
  Having had little to no prior knowledge of post-World War II Hungary, I appreciated how the author provided the necessary information to fully immerse me in the setting.
  
  
  Writing: 5/5
  The writing was exceptional, and I particularly loved how Hebrew was incorporated into the narrative.
  
  Ending: 5/5
  The ending was incredibly satisfying and felt like the perfect conclusion. I didn't find myself wanting more.
• 
  Book Reviewer

  Finding Home (Hungary, 1945) by Dean Cycon is a poignant tale about a group of Holocaust survivors returning to their hometown of Laszlo, Hungary. The narrative follows the traumatized group as they struggle to reintegrate into society, with a particular focus on young pianist Eva. Battling with her trauma and memories, Eva endeavors to reclaim her former life before the Nazi occupation. However, many of their homes have been sold or repurposed, creating further hurdles in their attempts to rebuild their lives. Despite these challenges, Eva perseveres, working hard to return to her passion for music and auditioning for the academy she has always dreamed of.
  
  This gripping novel is highly recommended for those who appreciate impactful historical fiction. It is a well-crafted story that is deeply rooted in historical facts, with Eva's flashbacks and memories drawn from the experiences of actual Holocaust survivors. Each character has their own backstory and challenges, making the emotional impact of the narrative even more profound. The reader is swept up in their journey, feeling immense sympathy for their struggles.
  
  The writing style is commendable, with well-constructed sentences that read smoothly and effortlessly. The third-person narrative is skillfully executed, making for a seamless reading experience. Regarding the struggle that the characters felt returning home, readers can feel the devastation at finding everything they remembered taken from them yet again. The townspeople's lack of welcome for the returning survivors casts a dark shadow over surviving the Holocaust. Still, their determination to not give up and reclaim parts of their life is felt throughout the pages of this exceptional novel.
  
  In summary, Finding Home (Hungary, 1945) by Dean Cycon is a beautifully written and engaging historical fiction novel that powerfully depicts the struggles of Holocaust survivors returning home. I highly recommend it to anyone seeking an immersive and moving reading experience.
• 
  Teresa

  It is always refreshing to have an author come up with a totally different view from the WWII era. I have read many books on the war but none of them have covered the Jews return to their hometowns and how their lives were changed, not only the atrocities during the war in the camps but the hatred, unfairness, and yes, more atrocities by their previous neighbors and local government of their hometowns.
  This story is written well and we followed Eva’s struggles and her tenacity and love for playing the piano. There were several other characters covered in this story too. My only con was about 65% in, the story seemed to stray from the storyline but it quickly returns and the ending did tidy up very well. The book has heartache and sadness, but it also has hope, love, family, maybe not blood family but true family and a very satisfying ending. I will say, some of the situations were disturbing as are many of the events that went on during the war.
  This was a nice change of topic for WWII books and comes in with 4 stars.
  I was provided an ARC from NetGalley and Koehler books for a voluntary review if I so wish, I thank them.
• 
  Elaine Burnes

  Wow. This one will stick with me. For so much of it, I couldn’t see how it could end, either happily or tragically. Has a bit of magical realism thrown in (or religious awakening or spirituality, depending on your slant). The biggest lesson for me, a privileged middle-class white non-Jew, was really feeling what it’s like to not feel safe anywhere.
• 
  Peg Lehman

  Powerful, compelling read
  
  I was drawn to this book because my Hungarian parents were Holocaust survivors and many of my family were murdered in Auschwitz. As a fellow musician I resonated with Eva’s deepening spirituality, compassion, and artistic empathy and brilliance.
• 
  Kathy

  What a hauntingly beautiful book. Imagine being only one of a handful of people who come back to your village after Auschwitz. This was such a good representation of the theme of you can't go home again and that family may not only be the people you were born to. I loved it.
• 
  Robin

  Superb storytelling. Deeply moving. Highly recommend.
• 
  Carol

  Still processing this painful story.
• 
  Donna Foster

  Whoo-wee this is a brutally harsh, torturous story and also a learning experience of Jewish life after World War II: The Holocaust.
• 
  Elaine Thatcher

  An incredibly impactful 5 out of 5 stars.
  
  This layered and heartbreaking tale follows the stories of six Jewish survivors of Auschwitz as they try to return home, to their prewar lives. The closest story I can compare this work to is Ragolletto.
  
  The first few chapters of this book are a little choppy, the author finding his way in the story, in writing in general. But as you continue, you sink deeper. This book broke me, I need a break from reading, from feeling. This book is beautiful and I highly suggest it, just know it is not an easy read.
  
  Thank you to Netgalley and Koehler books for the e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.