Tamarac author Eric Lamet was only seven years old when the Nazis invaded Vienna and changed his life and the lives of all European Jews forever.
Five days after Hitler marched in, Eric Lamet and his parents fled for their lives. Unable to remain together, the family split. He and his mother hid out in Italy, while his father returned to his native Poland and an even darker fate.
In this remarkable feat of memory and imagination, Lamet recreates the Italy he knew from the perspective of the scared and lonely child he once was. We not only see the hardships and terrors faced by foreign Jews in Fascist Italy, but also the friends Eric makes and his mother’s valiant efforts to make a home for him.
In a style as original as his story, the author vividly recalls a terrible time yet imbues his recollections with humor, humanity, and wit. With a rare compassion toward friend and foe alike, little Eric Lamet shows us that there is light to be found in the darkest places—and that we should remember the good as well as the bad.
Lamet was born Erich Lifschutz on May 27, 1930, into an upper-middle-class Jewish family. Both his parents, born in Poland, moved to Vienna before the first Great War.
On March 18, 1938, five days after the Anschluss, when German troops had marched into Vienna, Lamet’s family fled to Italy, where he spent most of the next twelve years. After World War II ended, Lamet settled in Naples with his family. He finished high school in that city and studied Engineering at the University of Naples.
In 1950 the family moved to the United States, where Lamet continued his engineering studies at the Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia, near his family’s home. Deciding that business would be more in keeping with his personality, he embarked on a business career. Over the years he became involved in a variety of enterprises until his eventual retirement as a CEO in 1992.
Fluent in German, Italian, English, Spanish, and Yiddish, Lamet served as an interpreter for the U.S. State Department and taught Italian for several years. Lamet has studied piano and voice and, to this day, enjoys performing Neapolitan songs.
Lamet has three children, two stepchildren, and seven granddaughters which were the reason “A Child al Confino” was written.
He and his wife share their time between Tamarac and Pittsfield, Mass. “For the past thirteen years I have enjoyed the hospitality of Tamarac where I spend the great part of each year,” says Lemet. “I started my writing career here and plan on continuing doing so as long as my computer survives my banging away at it.”
Lamet and his wife love Tamarac and are always excited to come back, “My wife and I have found Tamarac to be an oasis in the South Florida jungle yet we feel still well connected to what the mega cities have to offer.”
You can find “A Child al Confino:” at Barnes and Noble and online at www.Amazon.com where it is also available in a downloadable version.
If you would like a dedicated and signed copy. You can only get it from the author. Send your check for $21.95 plus $3.00 for S&H to: Eric Lamet, 7919 Exeter Blvd. West, Tamarac, FL 33321.
