Plums, Paprika & Ghosts

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Back in September 2021 I was about to undertake a journey I had imagined all my life. Traveling back to the land of birth of my maternal grandparents, Jack and Charlotte Greenfield. That land no longer exists. It was known in their time as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As a boy, they regaled me with tales of those lands. Vast plains, towering mountains, thick forests. I was making this trip with my then 27-year-old son. It was my gift to him for his graduation from Columbia Law School.

I have traveled the world. I’ve been to Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, and all over Latin America. I’ve been 600 miles from Antarctica. The wander lust has always been strong in me. Yet for me this trip was different. Here I knew I would walk the streets and paths they walked. I’d see the same vistas they saw under the same sky. What was missing was them and the rest of the Jews who once called this place home. I hoped to feel those souls and spirits as I made this journey. And more importantly, I hoped my son would, too.

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Praise

“Plums, Paprika & Ghosts is a travel memoir, but so much more. As the grandson of Holocaust survivors searches for family roots and connections throughout Hungary and Slovakia, Sidransky’s colorful writing not only brings alive the sights, tastes, smells and history of these countries, but also his family tree. An enlightening and colorful read!”
—Meryl Ain, author of The Takeaway Men, and Shadows We Carry

“A.J. Sidransky’s pilgrimage with his son, Jake, to his grandfather’s homeland detailed skillfully for us in Plums, Paprika & Ghosts, begins like a travelogue. Green landscapes. Wondrous tastes. Then the narrative becomes deeply personal. The loss of a world pops into three dimensions, beyond histories, generalities, apologetics, victimhood, or denial. Topography, museums, historical sites, recipes still alive in the culture, as well as the memories of those who escaped, and those who didn’t. ‘My grandfather’s heart never healed,’ he writes. ‘Arrival here has already gone a long way in healing mine.’ A triumph.”
—Leah Lax, author of Not From Here-The Song of America