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| American novelist Stuart Tower talks about the "Fusgeyers"
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Stuart Tower
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American novelist Stuart Tower, recently visited Romania, together with a group of fascinated readers of his book The Wayfarers. The novel, set in the late 19th and early 20th century tells the story of sixty young Jewish men and women - collectively known as the Fusgeyers. The group are forced to leave Romania and the book follows their brave and idealistic march across an ethnically divided Europe towards the dream-country of the United States of America.
Tower is also the author of “Withered Roots:The Remnants of Eastern European Jewry,” a collection of interviews with aging Holocaust survivors in Romania, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, the former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.
Another book “Hear O Israel: poetica Judaica” covers the vanished shtetl life of Eastern Europe, touches upon the Gulf of Mexico’s Texas shore, the political instability of post-Peronist Argentina, the 1939 Havana Harbor, the famed raid on Entebbe and gives voice to Jerusalem’s Western Wall.
EJP spoke to Tower about his research methods and the plans for a film version of the book.
EJP: How did you discover the story of the Fusgeyers?
ST: During several journeys into Romania during the 80’s and 90’s, I interviewed many Jewish Romanians and talked to them about Irving Howe’s book "World of our Fathers" where he mentions the Fusgeyers of Birlad. I knew then, that I simply had to write a novel featuring this phenomenon.
EJP: The history of the Fusgeyers is not very known in Romania. What steps did you take in documenting this book?
ST: I researched the history through the Yiddish Scientific Institute (YIVO) in New York, and at various large library research departments in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. The history of the Fusgeyers did not seem to be well known among Romania’s Jewish population at the times when I visited. Subsequently, I have communicated with a number of Romania’s Jews who did know something of the history of Romanian Jewry.
EJP: After this experience, what is your opinion about the history of Jews in Eastern Europe, and more specificaly in Romania?
ST: Unfortunately, the history of the Jews of Europe is concentrated on the Holocaust and its aftermath, with only sparse knowledge of the massive emigrations of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Romanian Jewry seems, too, to be mainly interested in Romanian Jewry and the effect of the Holocaust upon them and their ancestors. Although there is considerable reference to the Holocaust in The Wayfarers, I used this only as a vehicle for flashing forward to current day Romania.
EJP: Recently you visited Romania together with a group, to research the places that are presented in your book. How did your friends did come closer to this subject and how do you feel after this visit?
ST: It was a very emotional visit and everyone really enjoyed every part of it. I’m very happy that I gave them a chance to see the beauties of Romania, and also some of the Jewish history.
EJP: Do you feel somehow enriched after writing this book?
ST: Yes, I do. It was a very rewarding experience doing all of the research, interviewing various people and coming up with a 600 page novel that has been so well received. I have spoken at 69 venues since the book was published and I have many more dates to speak in 2006.
Now, with the movie plans, we are very happy to proceed. To have personally met with Andrei Schwartz, Erwin Shimshenson, Bobby Wainblat and Rozina Steigmann, and to see and hear what they and OTER (Organization of Young Jews from Romania) are doing to revitalize Judaism in Romania was especially rewarding to me, and to all of my readers who accompanied me to Romania. We all felt exceptionally proud to be Jewish after the emotional trip!
EJP: Is your book pure fiction or does it also contains some documentary elements?
ST: The Wayfarers is strictly a historical novel, blending fiction with actual events and people. It is not a documentary of any kind. Remember, it is a novel, nothing less and nothing more.
EJP: What are the plans for the movie? Will it all be filmed on location?
ST: Yes, we are very excited about this. It will be filmed entirely in Romania, probably using Timisoara as the base because our Romania Movie Production company is from Timisoara. We hope to begin shooting the film in spring 2006...that means it could be in the movie theaters by the end of the year or early 2007.
EJP: Are you planning to translated The Wayfarers into Romanian?
ST: With Andrei Schwartz from Timisoara, representing a UK translation company, we may want to have him do it once the movie is started. I agree that Romanians should read this book to give them a sense of their own history, particularly as it had adversely affected their once very large Jewish population. When the movie is shown in Romania with subtitles, the book in Romanian will become very popular in our opinion. The readers and the moviegoers may not like the depiction of 1900’s Romania, but history is history, a lesson to be learned if we are ready to make any progress toward eventual peace on this planet!
EJP: Do you have other projects in Eastern Europe?
ST: Yes, I’m working on a follow-up novel for The Wayfarers, with scheduled research throughout Europe. It is a book called "BRANKO", subtitled, "a novel...in praise of a good man’s journey through life’s adventure”. It deals with the life of one of the Fusgeyers from the age of six, the lone survivor of a pogrom that had killed his parents and two sisters, on to his years as a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian military, and his subsequent life in America.
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