Finding Treasure
Lily Brett spoke with Sharyn Kolieb about how her book has become ’Treasure’.
Is a wall just a wall if it is the wall of the Warsaw Ghetto? Is a teapot just a teapot if it belonged to a person that was killed in the Holocaust, or is it treasure? Or is real treasure the bonds which give our relationships meaning?
That is a theme explored in the recently released film Treasure, which is based on Australian author Lily Brett’s Too Many Men (1999), winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best book in 2000.
The book is fiction but is known to be inspired by true events. Brett travelled to Poland with her father Max to understand her roots, visiting Auschwitz where her father and mother were imprisoned.
The film and book movingly explore issues of first and second-generation Holocaust trauma – as the lead character of Ruth (played by Lena Dunham) is consumed with trying to understand the horror of what transpired, while her father Edek (played by Stephen Fry) seeks to move forward with life while suffering the unhealable wound of losing his family.
Photo: Instagram @lilybrettauthor
The AJN spoke with Lily Brett to discuss her views on the film version of her book. Asked if she was happy with how the movie captured Too Many Men (which is being rereleased under the name Treasure to attract a new generation), Brett said, “I do feel happy with it. I think it’s a beautiful movie.” Brett said she understood that some changes would be made, but that she trusted the director Julia Von Heinz and was often consulted. On the portrayal of Ruth and Edek, Brett said, “I thought Lena Dunham was fabulous, and I thought Stephen Fry was too.”
The film also pays tribute to Brett’s family story. “There’s a moment where he [Stephen Fry] looks into his wallet and takes out a photograph of his late wife and that is a photograph of my mother, and that makes me cry straightaway. Then in the credits at the end of the movie, they’re interspersed with photographs of my father and me, which I think was a beautiful thing to do and the movie is dedicated to my father.”
Brett’s parents, Max (born Mojsze Brajtsztajn) and Rose (née Rozka Szpindler) were confined to the Lodz Ghetto where they married, before being taken to Auschwitz. Brett was born as Luba Brajtsztajn (Lilijahne Breitstein) in 1946 in Feldafing displaced persons camp in Bavaria, Germany. In 1948, Brett and her parents emigrated to Melbourne, living in North Carlton among a community of Holocaust survivors. Her sister Doris was born in 1950.
Brett attended the premiere of Treasure at the Berlin International Film Festival in February. Commenting on the post-October 7 timing of its release amid a climate of rising antisemitism, Brett said, “This movie is either just right for the times we live in or just wrong for the times we live in, because there’s such a lot of hatred in the world. I think that it’s brought out the racism in a lot of people, it’s brought out the antisemitism in a lot of people who would not necessarily have voiced it, so it’s a period of great uncertainty for all of us who are Jewish.” Asked why she felt it could be the wrong time Brett explained, “Because I think that possibly this period is not a period where people are going to feel the pain of Jews.”
As to what inspired her to write Too Many Men, Brett observed, “I think the same thing that inspired me to write everything that I write, to have a voice, to make people understand what happened in the past because they don’t. When you use the word Holocaust, people’s eyes roll to the back of their head. I’ve started saying the ‘Nazi era’ because people find it more interesting.”
Brett is one of the most well-known authors to write about second generation Holocaust trauma. She notes that even in her book inspired by her time as a rock music journalist Lola Bensky, she could not escape this issue.
Photo: Instagram @lilybrettauthor.
As a music journalist, Brett interviewed some of the most famous musicians on the planet. Discussing those times Brett reflected, “I never asked one question about the music … I remember asking Mick Jagger how did he get on with his mother. I wasn’t really interested in music … I was interested in finding out who they were. And surprising things happened, like Janis Joplin said to me, ‘Are you Jewish?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And she said, ‘Oh, that’s so cool.’ Nobody ever told me it was cool to be Jewish … Then I found out that her best friend was Jewish, and she went to temple regularly with them. I thought, she’s been to synagogue more times than I have.”
Now in her 70s and living in New York with her artist husband David Renkin, Brett remains determined to give voice to the suffering of the Holocaust. She is currently researching the testimonies of Nazi doctors at the Nuremberg trials to inform her next novel. She said, “People say to me, ‘Why are you reading such terrible things?’” to which she expressed, “It’s just part of my life.”
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