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--Reviews
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A fabulous book and deserves to do brilliantly. ---------
By Elga Kenins (Gold Coast Australia)
`From the Promised Land to the Lucky Country' - Renate
Renate writes the engrossing story of her life from the pre-Hitler good times in Germany through great traumas and adventures in different parts of the world to a satisfying retirement in Australia.
"I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth that was snatched from me before I had time to get used to it, and therefore I did not really miss it." She writes in an open, honest way of the changes in Israel/Palestine where she grew up and experienced the War of Independence, to adjusting to a new life in Australia. She embraces the changes and the challenges of running a private hospital while caring for a young family. We share in her joys and adventures, which take her round the world.
Interspersed throughout the book are some of her poems, which express deep emotions.
This book "From the Promised Land to the Lucky Country" gives a fascinating insight into a remarkable life.
All the best from Alga Kenins ***
 Courage, Adventure, Sadness and Joy
By J. H. Small (Australia) `From the Promised Land to the Lucky Country' - Renate
I was privileged to be one of the first to read `From the Promised Land to the Lucky Country' - an inspirational true account of Renate's life.
The book tells of the happy, and not so happy adventures, and the challenges faced by Renate and her family between 1933 and 1988 in four countries. - Germany, Eretz Israel, Australia and the USA.
It is a story of the enduring love between family members; between Renate and her husband Gerry, and the love they share for their three children and their families.
I was moved to tears and laughter. I was also educated in the customs and history of the different cultures, and encouraged to expand my mind by imagining the wide variety of circumstances and the diversity of experiences depicted.
Renate's parents demonstrated courage when they left Germany with their family to help settle Eretz Israel before the Second World War. With the same pioneering spirit in the 1950's, nurse Rinate and pilot Gerry migrated to an unknown country, Australia. With only a smattering of English, little money and nothing more than shear determination and willpower, they accomplished unbelievable things. They established their own private hospital in an outer Sydney suburb, and then migrated to the US to become qualified in chiropractic and radiology. They set up a thriving practice in Western Australia, whilst at the same time raising their children.
The adventures roll on one after the other, keeping the reader wanting to turn every page without putting the book down. Renate and her husband Gerry can truly be called `world citizens'.
Renate's style of writing is delightfully honest and from the heart. With English as a second language she transports the reader into other worlds through her turn of phrase and her view of her surroundings. Her descriptions paint visual images that can only be captured by the artist that she is, as she comments on details with a perspective uniquely her own.
This is neither a political commentary, nor a historical document, but Renate pulls no punches. If she has a comment which is important to make she makes it.
There is much in her life that Renate could resent if she chose to, but the energizing message of the story is `We can overcome' - and have fun along the way.
Reading `From the Promised Land to the Lucky Country' is an unforgettable experience that will inspire you to appreciate the world we live in and the indomitable human spirit.
I encourage you to do yourself a favour and claim a copy of Renate's book for yourself.
Joan Small - Author / Poet
***
 Review from BookSurge.com by Matt Mawson
By Ann (Charleson, SC USA)
Renate has created a well-written account of an eventful life, from growing up in the emerging nation of Israel, to her life as an artist and author in Australia.
Running to 400 pages and illustrated with over 100 photographs, "From the Promised Land. . ." follows the author's battles and triumphs, disappointments, joy and humour as she and her husband raise a family while dealing with a wide range of challenges, including losing comrades in the Israeli war of independence, dealing with bitterly cold winters, setting up a successful chiropractic clinic and a nursing home, building and launching a yacht, fighting a mean-spirited bureaucracy and defending their reputations in a long court case. The hardships are outweighed by the good times and Renate's positive attitude to life. ***
Rosalind Rosenfeld's Review from BookSurge.com
By Melissa (South Carolina) A compelling auto-biography that hi-lights the trials and tribulations of the author which starts in Germany in 1933.
Renate takes the leader on a journey through Israel, USA and Australia. Her story gives an insight into the State of Israel from before 1949 and the British Mandate from the point of view of the natives of Israel. Even in the land of milk and honey, her fighter-pilot husband is hampered by bureaucracy: bureaucracy she finds, as a citizen of the world, is relevant to all countries that they live in.
It is a determination of the spirit, sometimes against all odds to settle and re0settle in a foreign land. Her book is illustrated with interesting photographs bringing life to Renate's conversational style of writing. A good read that you will not put down to the end. ***
Renate's Journey (Lucky To Have Read It)
By P. Jones (Tokyo, Japan) All in all, a very nice read.
I approached this book with the idea of gleaning, through the author's eyes, a first-hand account of what it was like for a person of Jewish ancestry to have live though some major pieces of modern history, starting with the coming to power of the Nazis in Germany, moving through the formation and early development of the state of Israel, and ending perhaps with a view, through biased eyes of course, of what makes peace in the Middle East seemingly forever beyond reach.
Her later experiences as an émigré to Australia might be interesting too, I reckoned. Turned out that I got all of this and something more. That is, in reading the first 100 pages or so I was struck by and enjoyed the author's brightness of outlook and joy of life, and her mischievousness too which was often in evidence. (I took "strength of character as a "given" and was not wrong in the least in this pre-judgment.) I thought that she was reaching into memory to recreate these qualities, particularly the mischievousness, but then found that all of them stayed with her through out her entire 3-country passage of life.
I found it particularly noteworthy that that the time in her life when she most needs to draw on her inner strength is not, for example, when close friends from high school are killed in the war of independence. Rather, it is much later in life when she and her family come face-to-face with the power of a modern bureaucracy that decides to pursue the outsiders for reasons it never adequately explains, because it doesn't have to, and in an Orwellian manner, because it can.
Rina, along with her family, prevails but in so doing one can sense that she and her husband retreat to a safer, more removed (physically on a boat for a while) style of life in which they seemingly live apart from their adopted home country rather than becoming enmeshed in the social/political fabric of it.
I wondered, has she, figuratively speaking, rejoined the Jewish Diaspora that for centuries roamed in search of a homeland? But she has found her home; it is in her place of honor within a loving family...
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------(enter1419633074) ---------------------------------- The Launching Review
From the Promised Land to the Lucky Country' takes the reader from Israel to Australia...with many stops elsewhere around the world, as well. Have your atlas handy.
At times bluntly honest; always open and sincere, this is a true story, as she prefers to call it, of Renate's incredible life.
Be prepared to be inspired, as you read about the seemingly insurmountable mountains that Renate and her family, often, so matter-of-factly climb…
Be prepared to be taken through a range of emotions…of sentiments - from joy to tragedy, from compassion to discrimination, from laughter to rage…and to share in the love and friendship and family woven warmly throughout… Be prepared to learn, as you are entertained… Be prepared for a darn good read... As I read Renate's book, I felt as if she were sitting across from me, in a comfortable place, relaying in person the many amazing paths her life has taken since her birth in Germany in 1931, two years before Hitler came to power. Her writing style makes the book easy to read, with needless explanations nowhere to be seen. A lovely warmth rises from the pages. Though Renate was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, she writes that that affluence was snatched from her before she had time to get used to it. Her parents moved the family, which included Renate and her sister, to Israel in 1933, where they were able to escape, she writes, ‘…out of the mouth of the German dragon, with his fire and appetite for Jewish life, to the Land of Milk and Honey, but there was little milk…or honey…' in her parents' lives from then on. In her early days, Renate was a mischievous and fun-loving child, who was convinced that all she wanted to do in life…was to milk cows. As a teenager, life changed dramatically, and she became an Israeli soldier, fighting in the War of Independence. The earlier deaths of an acquaintance, barely 16, and a dear friend, not much older, both casualties of the War of Independence, left deep marks within her. At one stage, when living in a border kibbutz with Syria, Renate's prized possession was a Bessa Machine Gun. By 19 she was a war veteran, and at 22 a fully-fledged nursing sister. It was during this time that Renate met her future husband, ‘Gerry'- her true love…her life-long friend and companion…the man who is father to their three children. After their marriage in Israel, in December 1953, Renate worked in nursing positions that, from her descriptions of these in her book, could only have toughened her for what life would later bring. Gerry became a pilot, the youngest operational officer in the Air Force, and a fighter-bomber instructor. As problems arose within his working environment, the young couple decided to immigrate to Australia, flying via Iran, Pakistan, and The Philippines. Renate and Gerry arrived in Sydney on New Year's Day, 1956…a new country; a new language; new customs to learn. A whole new start. ----------------------------------------------------------- * * *
Throughout the book, I was continually amazed at Renate and Gerry's unflagging spirit…their desire to ‘give anything a go'…their ability to rise above adversity, no matter how difficult. Here I can only touch on a few examples…but I hope I whet your appetites to find out more. ----------------------------------------------------------- * * *
In the late 1950s, Renate and Gerry—very matter-of-factly, it came across to me—decided to establish a hospital, south of Sydney, in Gymea Bay. An appropriate building existed, so they didn't have to build one, but they had to arrange most everything else themselves, with some help from good friends at the beginning, to get it up and running. Renate even sewed the pillowslips for patients' beds. Gerry became the hospital handyman, plumber, and chief shopper in between flying for an aerial surveillance company, while Renate, along with the doctors she hired, took care of patients. This meant that she not only prepared all the meals and snacks, but did the hospital laundry—in the bathtub, no less, because they couldn't afford a washing machine at the time. In the meantime, two of Renate and Gerry's children, Iris and Gill, were born. Then, out-of-the-blue and much to Renate's surprise, Gerry suggested that they move to the United States to study Chiropractic, a subject he had become interested in after a visit to a Chiropractor because of a sore knee. Not being people to shy away from a challenge, 1963 saw them off to Davenport, Iowa, to live…and the Palmer College of Chiropractic to study. It took time but, at Palmer, Gerry graduated as a Doctor of Chiropractic, and Renate as a Chiropractic Radiographer. Renate writes that they ‘…crossed the road from a medical orientation, to a chiropractic one, and that venture into human growth became a part of the rest of their lives…' Baby Sharon was born during their time in the US, before the now-family-of-five took the next big step…and moved to Perth, Western Australia in 1967, where they established a Chiropractic clinic.
What I haven't mentioned, but what I am sure you could imagine, there were a number of small moves in amongst all the bigger moves: houses, cars, and furniture—bought and sold; many places traveled; several pets loved and buried. There was a time, too, in Western Australia, when a young girl with an unhappy home life virtually became part of the Vardi family for a period…almost like a fourth child.
* * *
It's now 1972, and Gerry and Renate again sell-up, this time their successful Chiropractic clinic in Perth, and the family moves back to Israel, where Gerry does some Chiropractic work.
It is while the Vardi's are in Israel this time, that the Yom Kippur War breaks out and Renate's brother-in-law, aged 53, is killed by a bomb while driving a truck in the Sinai Desert, in a convoy, towards the Suez Canal.
Unable to settle in Israel, Renate returns to Perth in late 1973, and begins preparations to establish another Chiropractic clinic. Gerry and the children soon follow.
As the clinic is being set up, Gerry also learns about, and helps to launch, a furniture making business, for reasons you will learn in the book, working until all hours on the project.
I just can't help but admire the inquisitive minds; the willingness to work; the thirst for knowledge the Vardi's possess.
It is around this time that Renate and Gerry take a magical trip to Easter Island and Brazil—a well-deserved holiday, not another move or quest to learn Portuguese, or the like! Their next holiday sees them in Vienna, Austria, Gerry's birthplace.
'In the mid-to-late 1970s, trouble brews and life becomes a nightmare that is always present in the background until the mid-1980s. Coupled with Gerry's car accident plus a compensation court case that will leave you gasping, this stressful period involves the loss of their clinic, as well as
blackmail. Life goes on, however, and Gerry and Renate, as always, make the best of it.
What Renate and Gerry were put through I, personally, don't know how they survived, but they are here today; I am sure stronger and, rightly, standing tall within themselves. I congratulate them.
During that time, they meet Prince Leonard of Hutt River Province in Western Australia. Then, as a belated 25 th wedding celebration, Renate and Gerry travel to Europe, the USA, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa, where they holiday but, also, look into economies, work opportunities, licensing laws, and so on. No stopping these two!
While in the USA, in Los Angeles to be exact, Renate and Gerry reaffirm their marriage vows. Renate's book is interspersed with her poetry, and she celebrates this occasion with the poem ‘My Love'.
Once home after this multi-continent trip, Renate, in her late 40s by now, sets about to get her pilot's license, and although she never completes the course, she has one heck of a solo flight. And I mean that in a complementary way.
I don't know if you could even begin to guess their next venture, but they decide to build a boat…a yacht…from scratch…with absolutely no boat-building or sailing experience between them. Renate figures a boat floats in water and that's it…she doesn't see any great drama in building one. Along the way, she does learn that there is a bit more to it, but that doesn't stop them creating ‘Epic', a ketch over 18 metres long and six metres wide. A boat-builder builds the hull, but the family puts in their share of work, including filling the hull with the required seven tonnes of ballast. You've just got to read about it…the pictures in the book show a sailboat an Onassis would be proud to own.
Actually sailing ‘Epic', however, turns out to be another matter, as Renate suffers from severe seasickness, and Gerry suffers badly due to injuries sustained in a car accident in the late 1970s, when someone runs into the back of his stationary vehicle, at speed.
The boat, though, turns out to be a comfortable moored home but, then, Renate and Gerry are off travelling again, this time back to Israel—where daughter Sharon is engaged in four months military training, as well as to Japan and China.
‘From the Promised Land to the Lucky Country' took Renate 10 years to write, and some 400 pages to tell in an extraordinary tale of two people whom I hesitate to call ‘ordinary'…two people who rise nobly to life's challenges, yet appreciate, value, and embrace all the many miracles life has to offer.
Donna Mroz Turcic – January 2007
(Gold Coast, Australia)
Buy from ----
-Amazon.com----Angus & Robertson ----Barnes & Noble ----BookSurge -------------
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