Vera Gran

December 17, 2012
The fraught politics of collaboration and guilt are dissected in this darkly absorbing biography of an icon of the Warsaw Ghetto. Poet and biographer Tuszynska profiles Vera Gran, a Polish-Jewish torch singer who starred at the ghetto’s Cafe Sztuka and was dogged by postwar allegations that she collaborated with the Gestapo. (Gran’s feud with her accompanist, Wladyslaw Szpilman, who wrote her out of his celebrated Holocaust memoir, The Pianist, surfaces in her dubious counteraccusations that Szpilman was himself a brutal collaborationist policeman.) Tuszynska’s shrewd examination of the evidence largely absolves Gran, but her account is really a probing, atmospheric study of the ghetto’s moral ambiguities; like many, to survive—and possibly to protect others—Gran made compromises with the powerful, free-spending collaborationist figures who kept afloat the semiluxurious nightclub demimonde that sheltered her from the ghetto’s agony. She’s hardly a saint in Tuszynska’s account; the author’s sharply etched portrait of her in old age depicts a narcissistic diva with a demented persecution complex and her own load of guilt for abandoning her family in the early days of the ghetto. In Charles Ruas’s skillful translation, Tuszynska’s prose conveys Gran’s story in brisk, evocative montage while, appropriately, leaving open enigmatic gaps. She finds no bright line of truth—just subtle shades of gray that are revealing of a nightmarish time. 30 photos. Agent: Carol Mann, the Carol Mann Agency.

January 1, 2013
Highlights from the life of singer Vera Gran (1916-2007) give a deeper look into the cost of surviving the Holocaust and the struggles that haunt those who did. Tuszynska (Lost Landscapes: In Search of Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Jews of Poland, 1998) begins with Gran's final years before returning to her subject's childhood. The author follows the star through the shyness of youth and her first dance lessons to her decision to sing professionally. All of this is background to Gran's eventual success as a nightclub singer in the Warsaw ghetto. Tuszynska chronicles Gran's wartime life--she escaped before the ghetto was closed off, then bribed officials to let her back in before finally escaping again a few years later--and discusses her visits with her subject. The author renders the World War II years in great detail, but the meat of the book lies in the accusation that Gran collaborated with the occupied forces in Warsaw and her vigorous, lifelong self-defense. The author fleshes this section out with witness accounts. With the constant changes in scene and the muddled nature of the accusations made, the book is challenging and can be difficult to follow. While Gran's accompanist, Wladyslaw Szpilman, is mentioned in the subtitle and brought up frequently throughout the narrative, his role in the book is actually quite small and ill-defined. It's as though Gran decided he was responsible for her fate, so Tuszynska felt the need to weave him into the story regardless of evidence. The author clearly has unanswered questions about their relationship, but his somewhat central role in the story makes little sense. A great choice for Gran devotees or World War II enthusiasts, but too limited in scope for general readers.

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February 1, 2013

Virtually forgotten today, Vera Gran was a popular personality in the pre-World War II Warsaw nightclub scene. An inhabitant of the Warsaw Ghetto, she performed with pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman (the protagonist of the film The Piano) prior to escaping the ghetto. After the war, Gran was accused, although not convicted, of collaborating with the Nazis, and these accusations contributed to the ruin of her postwar career. Tuszynska (Lost Landscapes: In Search of Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Jews of Poland), a Polish-born poet, spent several years interviewing Gran at the end of the singer's life. She insists that she is not writing a biography of Gran but rather uses the woman's experiences, and her accusations that it was Szpilman who collaborated with the Nazis, as a means of meditating on the nature of collaboration and historical memory after the Holocaust. VERDICT Although Tuszynska claims she had unfettered access to Gran's personal papers and that she examined many other archival sources, there are no citations provided to specific sources. Furthermore, the book does not follow a standard linear narrative and often reads like a stream of consciousness, which not only makes for difficult reading but limits its use for scholars. Recommended only for specialists collecting comprehensively. [See Prepub Alert, 8/15/12.]--Frederic Krome, Univ. of Cincinnati Clermont Coll.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2013
Vera Gran (19162007) was a star cabaret singer who chose to live in the Warsaw Ghetto after Germany invaded Poland. There she continued her career, escaping before the ghetto's destruction, in 1943. Whether she collaborated with the Nazis or, conversely, organized and raised money for shelters for starving ghetto orphans became matters of controversy that she felt hindered her postwar career in Paris, where she was favorably compared to Piaf, and pushed her into reclusiveness and near madness in her last decades. Her erstwhile accompanist, Wladyslaw Szpilman, the subject of Roman Polanski's film The Pianist, was her principal accuser. She in turn accused him. No charges against her were ever proven. Tuszynska, who's written several biographies, says this book isn't one. Based on Gran's words to her, it's more an oral history, in which Gran is disputed and supported by other ghetto survivors and put in perspective by Tuszynska's evaluations of her candor. Though it doesn't conclusively exculpate Gran, the book powerfully communicates how living in fear disables factual as well as moral judgment.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)