Julie Metz, EVA AND EVE
[0:01]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:06]I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology,
[0:12]which you should run out and buy called Moms Don't Have Time to Accarantine Anthology.
[0:16]I'll proceed to that book, go to COVID-19 Vaccine Research.
[0:20]And I'm the editor-in-chief of Moms Don't Have Time to Write a new publication on Medium,
[0:24]and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there.
[0:29]And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram, at Zibi Owens, and my website is Zibi Owens.com.
[0:35]Okay, now back to this amazing podcast.
[0:38]Julie Metz is the author of Eva and Eve, a search for my mother's lost childhood, and what a war left behind.
[0:44]Julie is the New York Times best-selling author of the memoir Perfection.
[0:47]She has written on a wide range of women's issues for publications, including The New York Times,
[0:52]Salon, Red Book, Dame, Glamour, and the story site, Mr. Beller's Neighborhood.
[0:56]Her personal essays have appeared in The Anthology's The Moment, and The House That Made Me.
[1:01]She has been a fellow at the McDowell Colony, Yatto, and the Virginia Center for the Arts.
[1:05]She currently lives with her family and two cats in New York's Hudson Valley.
[1:09]Welcome, Julie. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Bex.
[1:13]And thank you so much for having me really pleased to be here.
[1:16]I'm a hold-up year book because I saw a finished copy.
[1:20]It's so exciting.
[1:22]And they did such a nice job.
[1:24]It's like it's embossed and, you know, spot lost.
[1:28]So exciting.
[1:29]When you finally get one, and then I can't wait.
[1:32]Oh my gosh.
[1:33]Well, as I've told you over Instagram and a few minutes ago and everything, like I have just been so riveted by and immersed in this book.
[1:42]I have not been able to put it down, which is the best feeling.
[1:45]And yet, I've been reading it slowly, which I also rarely do because I feel like your sentences are so beautiful.
[1:53]Like the way that you write and how you conjure up images with your words.
[1:58]And it's like this great confluence of a great story and a great way that you told it with the modern day and back in Vienna.
[2:06]And I've learned so much.
[2:08]And anyway, I am just such a big fan of this book.
[2:11]Oh, wow.
[2:12]Thank you.
[2:13]That's amazing to hear.
[2:15]You know, it is hard when you, when you work for, you know, I worked on this book for many years.
[2:19]The research part took, I won't say how many years because I know a lot of people are very interested in looking at, you know, doing family history.
[2:27]And they just don't understand like, have, have far back you end up going.
[2:33]And sometimes you go down some rabbit holes and the rabbit holes are exciting, but you might, you might find nothing.
[2:39]So that took a lot of years and then really, I did have a wonderful editor.
[2:44]And, you know, all praised editors who helped you put the whole thing together in a way that, that pleases readers and, you know, I'm glad that glad it worked.
[2:55]Yeah.
[2:56]I mean, there's, and there's so much in here because you also share so much of your own life and your relationship with your daughter.
[3:04]Mostly her teenage years now. I know she's older, she's the end, but all of the, the parent, the mothering and your mother, just like all the generations.
[3:14]Anyway, it was amazing.
[3:15]Yeah, there's a lot of moms that, you know, the, yeah.
[3:18]Cause, I mean, there's my grandmother who I never met.
[3:21]Yes.
[3:22]I know about her from stories my, a few stories I would hear my mother tell, but mostly actually from my father who adored her.
[3:32]So I think my mother sometimes some stories were just really too painful for her to talk about. So I didn't hear a lot.
[3:39]But my dad just thought she was the most wonderful person. So he, you know, that's sort of the, the way that I've learned about my grandmother.
[3:48]And also my grandfather, because my, my dad, when my parents were first married, they lived with my grandparents.
[3:56]Yeah. So it's, I feel like, I feel like I didn't ask you. I didn't explain this well enough for somebody just picking up this book to understand.
[4:03]Maybe give a little background on what's involved in this book and, and the central, you know, themes and everything.
[4:11]So it's the story of how my mother's family, the singers, they were a Jewish family in Vienna, how they got out of Vienna in 1940.
[4:21]And this was a story that always troubled me as a child, because it just sounded kind of crazy, you know, and very, so chaotic. No one could really explain it to me.
[4:33]You know, how did they get out when a lot of people, of course, especially a lot of Jews in Vienna got stranded.
[4:41]And most were deported and did not survive the war. So my mother would tell me this story, you know, this was the story.
[4:49]And all the stories were kind of unbelievable actually unbelievable.
[4:54]But one of the stories she would tell me was that what had saved her father's life was that he ran a factory that manufactured packaging for the pharmaceutical industry.
[5:06]And one of the items they made was this lovely little thing here, which is I always call it the paper fan.
[5:14]So I'm described it for me when I was a kid and I just couldn't get a visual.
[5:20]So I wasn't able to find out about what this thing actually was and what it looked like until I became connected through the wonderful world of the internet and serendipity to the person who is now occupying the space where my grandfather's factory was in Vienna.
[5:41]So he is running his business there. And I think it really captured his interest too.
[5:48]So he just started doing all this research for me and a lot of people helped me do this research.
[5:55]And I was just amazed actually by, you know, if you just are open and you ask, maybe people will say yes and help you.
[6:04]So like he found this object which is still being produced today for the homeopathic medicine industry and they pop the medicine in these little channels and then fold each pouch separately and that's how they dose it.
[6:19]And this was used was patented I think in about 1905 and it was very successful little product.
[6:27]And so even though pills were coming into use in the 1920s and 30s, they were still using this item and the Nazis considered it essential for the war effort.
[6:39]And so the machine my mother would always say the machine was so complicated that they kept him alive to make sure that it ran.
[6:50]And I thought how complicated could a machine be but I believe I've seen the machine and it is complicated.
[6:58]And it looks really like a one off. I don't know how to describe it but it's just like something that there's only one in the world or me there's a few I don't know.
[7:10]But you can see that it's been tinkered with over over many, many years and you know little repairs have been made and adjustments.
[7:19]This is the machine that's producing these items now the company bought it in 1951 i'm pretty sure it's the same one maybe that was like one of the best things in the book was when you were reunited with this machine.
[7:33]I couldn't believe it I just you could just I was like getting chills even.
[7:37]imagine he's standing in that room like next to the machine and oh my gosh you know I have to say that all these moments of encountering my grandparents life and my grandfather's factory.
[7:49]And just all the pieces kind of come together every you know i'm a very practical person and you know i'm not so supernatural but I'll just say that I did have moments of feeling very connected to the past I don't know how to explain it but there you are so.
[8:06]yeah well it's also like without like the image is so striking because there you are standing next to this machine without which you wouldn't be standing there.
[8:15]Yeah, like that machine is how you are here it's it's like mind boggling and that you even had a scene in the book where your grandfather is taking off.
[8:27]I mean that was and I'm not like giving it away, but like I could not believe that that the the new operations manager who he had hired to take over it was just too complicated and they go running down to the station and grab him off the train I mean what.
[8:44]How many times could that have happened that's a miracle you know the thing is that this was the other story my mother would always say that he was pulled off the train that was going to do.
[8:54]You know this was the story you're thinking no this is just beyond the beyond and you know but this was the story and you know so after so a lot of my work was I wanted to see if my mother's stories were true.
[9:09]But then she was a completely unreliable terrier you know that but in fact most of the stories were true enough.
[9:17]And of course she was observing everything as a child and a child you know mean she was when when everything started to be terrible in Vienna she was 10 years old so you know how does a 10 year old.
[9:32]Look at all this with with sort of terror and disbelief but also a kind of magical thinking that I wanted to sort of explore of it, but in fact that story looks like it probably happened.
[9:47]They may have had they may have held him somewhere in Vienna in an important state.
[9:53]But this is this is what happened and then the other crazy story was that family.
[10:00]that lived in the building, I've never heard anything about eventually because the world is weird.
[10:08]I'm now in touch with the descendants of that family too.
[10:12]So it all just kind of came together in ways that you can't explain.
[10:19]I mean, I did my work, you know, I did a lot of work.
[10:22]But sometimes I just think that once you start pushing open the doors and if you just stand there
[10:28]there in weight and your patient, things just sort of come.
[10:31]So, anyway, I'm going with that.
[10:34]Okay.
[10:36]I think part of what made this book so compelling is not just the story itself, but you tell
[10:43]it in such a like a visual way.
[10:47]Even the way you have all these paragraphs, like there's a picture that shows X, Y, Z.
[10:52]And then you say this scene was, there's not a photo that shows X, Y, Z.
[10:56]I didn't say that very well.
[10:57]You wrote it much better.
[10:58]But like, here's the picture and now we can imagine you looking at the picture.
[11:01]And you're like, but here's this picture doesn't exist.
[11:03]And then we see, you know, your grandfather is sitting reading the newspapers at this cafe.
[11:07]And I can just see the whole thing and the drink.
[11:10]And I can like smell it.
[11:12]And you paint a picture of what Vienna really was.
[11:16]And the Jewish community there and sort of the classiness and glamor,
[11:21]the sophistication of the city.
[11:23]And just, I don't know.
[11:25]I've read so many books about the Holocaust in different ways, shapes or forms,
[11:29]seen lots of movies and whatever.
[11:31]And yet this was, I feel the best encapsulation of Vienna itself.
[11:36]And like that was another character.
[11:38]And I could just see this.
[11:40]You're family there.
[11:41]And the fact that then you bring it back.
[11:43]I mean, even yesterday, and I like ripped this out of the paper,
[11:45]you probably saw it.
[11:46]But was it yesterday or the day before?
[11:48]How this new photo from Gustav Klim, they actually restored back to the family in Vienna at the time.
[11:55]And I was thinking like, I wonder if your family knew that family.
[11:59]Like maybe they all had dinner or maybe they all knew each other.
[12:02]Like it was a small world in other words.
[12:04]It was.
[12:05]I mean, I think that it was important to me to recapture that world.
[12:10]Because the more research I did about that world of the Jews and Vienna before the war,
[12:16]the more I realized how unique it was, how special it was that it had collected just an enormous number of very ambitious hardworking creative people.
[12:28]And then he had come from an area that doesn't really exist anymore.
[12:32]Galicia, you know, served straddles, Poland, Ukraine.
[12:36]I don't know.
[12:37]But it doesn't exist anymore as its own country.
[12:39]And they all came to Vienna the way people say go to New York, you know, to make good.
[12:45]And they really established themselves.
[12:48]And then also there was that cafe culture that we've all read about.
[12:52]And so, you know, you had sigmund Freud, you had, you know, and then you just had families like mine, which would, you know, sort of upper middle class family, people worked hard.
[13:02]But they had a very good life.
[13:04]It was a very cultured life.
[13:06]You know, people read, they went to the theater, they went to the opera.
[13:10]So when I went on my trips to Vienna, you know, that world is gone.
[13:15]I mean, that very magical world of that time is gone.
[13:18]But I really wanted to try to find it as in a sensory way so that when people read the book, maybe they could appreciate what was lost, you know, what it was and what was lost.
[13:31]And so also my mother was a wonderful cook.
[13:34]So I grew up with all that food.
[13:37]And I really wanted everything.
[13:39]I wanted the food, the smells, you know, the way the city looks, the sweet treats, the coffee, everything.
[13:47]I feel like you made, you made like so many jokes about how many sweet treats you were eating.
[13:51]And like how you weren't going to like fit in your pants and like all that stuff.
[13:54]And I'm like, okay, she's eating another.
[13:57]Yeah, now we're having to there to get it.
[14:00]Yeah, the, my host who was this guy from that readers will meet.
[14:05]He's a wonderful guy, and that guy can eat so many different things.
[14:10]I can't explain that.
[14:12]But, you know, it seems to be that is the life.
[14:16]You know, you work, people work.
[14:18]And then it's time to go to the cafe, you know, and sit down and chat, you know, and I think I learned a lot when I was there.
[14:26]Just about, you know, I think we all need to make a little time to do that.
[14:32]You know, we don't make that enough.
[14:34]And right now, of course, it's impossible.
[14:36]And that's one of the things we've really lost during this last year.
[14:41]But I think as soon as this time's over, I've had my first vaccine, yay.
[14:46]But as soon as we can all go out again, I really think it's so important to recapture that feeling of connection to our friends and our family.
[14:55]But I think that's what that time in Vienna was all about.
[14:58]It was, you know, I've often noticed it when you're in Europe.
[15:01]You know, people don't ask you what you do for a living.
[15:05]And you don't really ask them because you have other things to talk about.
[15:10]In fact, in some countries, like in Italy, I would say it's quite poor taste to do that, to ask someone what they do for a living.
[15:16]Because it's sort of irrelevant when you're not at your office or not working.
[15:23]So, right.
[15:24]Even the people that I spent so much time with who I met as colleagues, they were helping me with my research.
[15:31]We didn't spend a lot of time talking about what they did for a living.
[15:35]We were there to go explore a thing and do that together.
[15:39]And that's what we did.
[15:40]And then there were two other parts of the book that I just wanted to mention because they sort of stuck out.
[15:46]One is that you and your daughter, like smoke pot together.
[15:51]I have a little, like, I don't know.
[15:54]I mean, I have not heard of moms and daughters doing that.
[15:57]I haven't read that in anywhere before.
[15:59]Tell me about that.
[16:00]Was that like a one off or do you now?
[16:02]It was one off.
[16:03]Yeah.
[16:04]You know, it was just during that time, you know, I mean, full disclosure.
[16:09]I mean, I grew up, you know, people smoked a lot of pot.
[16:12]It was just a thing.
[16:13]I grew up in New York City.
[16:15]And then you find yourself in this terrible situation where your kid's school is telling you to tell them not to smoke pot.
[16:23]Do not smoke pot.
[16:24]And furthermore, don't tell your children kind of what you were doing when you were a teenager.
[16:30]So there you are being sort of asked maybe to lie to your children.
[16:35]And, you know, it just became so absurd after a while that in the end, I just raised the white flag.
[16:42]So it started because my, my daughter had stuff in the house.
[16:47]There were some seeds in there.
[16:49]And, you know, I'm a gardener.
[16:50]So I kind of, I thought, oh, what the heck, I sprouted the seeds.
[16:54]I put them in my Brooklyn backyard.
[16:56]They grew, you know, very nicely because, you know, really, you don't have to do very much.
[17:02]And so this was the, the little joint that I brought with me to Vienna.
[17:06]And I don't know what it was.
[17:08]It was just sort of a feeling like I want to connect with my kid who's still kind of mad at me, you know, because they're 15 and 15 is terrible.
[17:18]Who wants to be 15 again.
[17:20]And so there we were together on this trip.
[17:23]And it was just, it was, I won't ever forget that evening, you know, five minutes, ten minutes together sitting in the courtyard behind this apartment.
[17:33]But it was, you know, it was sort of a bonding moment.
[17:36]And I thought, okay, now we can, we can drop that facade.
[17:41]And, you know, we'll all just, you know, be ourselves.
[17:44]And, you know, we'll, we'll let it all out and, and just connect in that way.
[17:49]So.
[17:50]Well, you really captured that sort of solidness of the teen years.
[17:54]Oh, quite well.
[17:55]I was the same.
[17:56]So, you know, I think it's, you know, when I part of the painfulness of parenting, a kid that ages, you have to remember your own, your own 15.
[18:07]And, you know, I don't know anybody personally who loved being 15 was having a great time.
[18:13]So, I think it's, it's reliving it that it's so painful and knowing just knowing how hard it is to be in that place.
[18:21]So, I mean, I'm glad we took that trip together. It was, you know, for all the hardship of it. But I think of that section as the comic relief.
[18:31]Sort of the dark comedy of the whole book, you know, just trying to travel with your 15.
[18:39]It'd be its own book.
[18:43]And then, and I don't know if you're willing to discuss it at all, but there was a very traumatic part of what happened to you in the hotel when you were traveling.
[18:52]I just leave it big like that to see if you want to share and you don't have to.
[18:55]Yeah.
[18:56]I mean, the, I think being on that trip did, you know, I hate to overuse that word triggering, but it did kind of bring up a lot of feelings.
[19:06]And it did bring back the memory of when I was raped when I was 20 and I was in the South of France staying at a dormitory with some friends.
[19:17]And I felt safe, you know, I'd grown up in New York.
[19:20]All kinds of weird and unpleasant things that happened to me.
[19:24]And then this happened. And what I would say is that I know so many women to whom this has happened. And when you're young and it is an experience that there really is kind of a before and an after you are, you are changed.
[19:39]And it did change me. And that doesn't mean that I didn't do things that might surprise you, such as travel alone.
[19:47]That's some of the following summer. That was almost like I had to prove to myself that I could do that, that I could be by myself and independent and feel too powerful.
[19:59]But it took me.
[20:00]many years after that experience to really make sense of it and sort of understand that
[20:06]surviving that experience, however you did it, however you got through that experience and I've
[20:12]heard all kinds of stories from other people who, you know, also sort of had to talk their attacker
[20:19]out of the room the way that I did. Sometimes a weapon was involved, you know. I think everyone
[20:25]it changes you, but the reality is that if you talk to friends, it's so many of us. I mean,
[20:33]I honestly don't know a woman who has not had some kind of experience where they felt vulnerable
[20:40]and assaulted simply because you're female. So it's something that I, you know, you carry it with you,
[20:48]it's a burden. You all, I think the best that can happen really is that you make peace with it
[20:55]and find yourself, you know, you find that you are a powerful, you're a survivor, you did it
[21:02]your life. And that's, you know, that's, I think the best. Well, I'm very, very sorry that happened to you
[21:10]and it's really amazing that you included it and are open about it and I know,
[21:16]I definitely help other women. So yeah, I hope so because I think there's still, you know,
[21:21]we see every day. There's still so much silence around these issues and I thought I had never written
[21:28]about it, but I thought, okay, I'm ready to do it now and that I would put it out there so that
[21:35]I hope other people will feel that they can also talk about it. Well, do you have advice to
[21:42]aspiring authors? You must after pulling this off and seriously, this is a lot to weave into
[21:48]a book and it's not even too long, you know what I mean? Like it's very manageable and length and
[21:52]yet there's so much information. What advice would you have? Well, I'm a very hard worker and I'm
[21:58]very disciplined and I don't think anything can replace that. I really feel it's very important
[22:05]to sort of have faith. I think one of the things when you're writing a book is there's a long
[22:11]period of confusion. I mean, I don't know, maybe there's people, writers, I don't know,
[22:16]who sit down and write beautiful paragraphs and it all makes sense and they figured out the structure
[22:21]and they deserve right through it, but I don't personally know any of those people and I'm not
[22:27]that person. So for me, there's kind of a long period in the wilderness and I think it's that period
[22:33]when you might give up, but you must never give up. You should just, you just have to keep on
[22:40]plugging away. For me, the best book I've ever read on writing, well, there's two. One is
[22:46]Amlamops Bird by Bird, which is really just take break it apart into small pieces to the little
[22:53]pieces you'll get there. And the other is my very well-worn copy of Dany Shapiro's. I don't think
[22:59]you can see it. Yeah, still writing, which got left in the rain, but I kind of like it that I was
[23:06]reading it up in the last summer and it got left outside, but I kind of like that it's
[23:12]you know, gotten somewhere. But I think, you know, Dany's advice is very similar. You just have to keep
[23:17]doing small pieces, move forward and don't give up. If you feel like you have a good idea,
[23:24]you probably do. Also, if you're scared about what you're doing, you're definitely onto a good thing.
[23:31]So I think the more sort of terror there there is in that middle place where you're really
[23:38]not sure that this at any of this is going to work or make sense, you can work with that.
[23:44]So I hope that's helpful. Well, they were in the mud and Dany were both on this podcast and
[23:50]often virtual book clubs and is coming up, I think in April. But yes, those are two of my favorite
[23:56]books too. So I'm glad you mentioned that. Very helpful too. They've been very helpful to me.
[24:02]The others is Stephen King's book on writing. I was waiting for you to say that. I thought actually
[24:08]that was what you were going to say first. Yeah, that's a fabulous book. And I think his philosophy is
[24:13]the same. And he writes in the genre that couldn't be more different. I mean, I'm never going to write
[24:19]a horror novel. And he's a wonderful writer, really, very, very skilled. So such skilled storytelling.
[24:25]But, you know, his work ethic and just the way he, his commitment is really kind of what it's
[24:32]all about. But I feel like it with writing a book, it's really what you put in, he will, you will get
[24:38]back. Well, I'm so glad that I found this book that I was reading it over March 11, 12, 13,
[24:44]when all the events went down Vienna originally. Also with Passover around the corner and all of
[24:51]the the whole Passover service, I just feel like this was like a perfectly timed book release,
[24:55]obviously. And just we'll add another layer of meaning to Passover as well. Plus, now I am dying to go
[25:02]to Vienna. So I am like now that is on at the top of my wish list of travels. Yeah. Well, I don't know
[25:08]if I I didn't, I mentioned it just briefly in the book is that I'm in the process of applying for
[25:14]Austrian citizenship. So yes, much delay the Austrian government has now offered sort of what they
[25:23]it's like a restoration of citizenship to the descendants of Holocaust survivors. And my brother and I
[25:29]are, you know, in the midst of it now. And, you know, I'm I feel I've always felt connected to that city
[25:37]even long, you know, long before I first went. I felt like there was a piece of me there
[25:41]that I had to go find. And so I feel like having that that passport is going to be very meaningful to
[25:50]me and to all the other people who are applying. There are many, many, many people. My dad's dad's
[25:57]dad came from Austria. Oh, so now I have to go back and figure out where they lived and what you
[26:06]now I just need I need more information now. Because I know where to go. Yeah, I'll I'll be in touch
[26:14]about that. All right. Well, thank you, Julie. Thank you so much. And congratulations on this. Thank you so
[26:20]much. I really appreciate it. It's been great. Okay. Take care. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to this
[26:26]episode of moms don't have time to read books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at
[26:31]zbohans and at moms don't have time to read books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zbohans.com
[26:36]and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so
[26:41]much to Steve and Ryan in fact, texture sound for the sound editing. And thank you to Morning
[26:45]Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.