Romance z druhého břehu – Kanovič Grigorij (2023)

Kanovič's last book, Romance from the Other Shore, is inspired by the story of the author's quirky grandparents, parents, and other relatives and acquaintances from his family, in the second part also recalling his own childhood in a sleepy Jewish town deeply embedded in traditional religious rituals. Its inhabitants lived for many years in a closed community alongside Lithuanian and Polish neighbors, from whom they differed most in language, writing, and religion, but also in their specific humor and dreamy visions of love and mutual cohesion. They were uprooted by a new era that began to insidiously infiltrate their daily lives. All of Lithuania seemed to tremble and crack at the intersection of two great powers – first occupied by the Russians, soon after by the Germans. The Jews of Jonava sensed the mortal danger, and the evil premonition was fulfilled with the invasion of the German army. Previously, Jews from Jonava left for the world in hopes of a better livelihood or the idea of equality, freedom, and brotherhood; in the tragic days at the beginning of the war, they fled in fear for their very lives. The wartime journey of the author's family was not simple either, as Hirš-Grigorij hints in his memories.