The debut work by author Menachem Kaiser, A Memoir of Plunder starts the same way as do many similar Holocaust memoirs; generations after WWll, a family member visits a shtetl in some part of Europe with intent to better understand his/her lost ancestors. Kaiser, however, pivots beyond the familiar trope of Holocaust memoirs. He dives into bureaucratic pools of the Polish legal system, spelunks underground caves and plumbs the astonishing history of his grandfather’s cousin, Abraham Kajzer, a survivor and slave laborer within a network of tunnels known as The Reise Project.
Kaiser’s research begins with a trip to Sosnowiec, a shtetel in Poland, at one time his grandfather’s hometown. A Holocaust survivor, Kaiser’s grandfather died before his grandson, author Menachem Kaiser’s birth. However, young Menachem watched his father say Kaddish for Menachem’s grandfather every year and shared stories about his grandfather’s life in Europe. On arrival to his grandfather’s shtetel, the author determines Sosnowiec of the 21st century is nothing like the depiction of shtetls romanticized in movies or books. It was a dull industrialized place with little to do but hit the local bars.
As a favor to his father, the author agreed to enquire about his grandfather’s failed reclamation process-- an “investment property”-- in Sosnowiec belonging to the author’s great-grandfather, now valued at a half million dollars. Kaiser doubted whether he had any legal or ethical claim to his deceased great-grandfather’s property. At his father’s behest, Kaiser consults a Polish lawyer (an octogenarian named Killer) who specializes in Jewish property claims. She assures Kaiser’s is a slam-dunk case. All he has to do is prove to the Polish courts his great-grandfather is dead---- though he would be one hundred and forty were he still alive in 2024.
Awaiting the “imminent” results from both the lower and upper courts, Kaiser develops a friendship with anthropologist Joanna Lamparska. In turn, she introduces him to a couple of party-loving Salesian treasure hunters. Their hobby is exploring the Owl Mountains housing The Reise Project ---a series of tunnels and caves which forms an enormous subterranean compound, once a storage depository for looted Nazi plunder. The tunnels may conceivably contain a train of gold.
On the strong recommendation of his new besties and before embarking on an exploration of The Reise Project, Kaiser buys a popular guidebook featuring detailed maps of the site. Originally written in Polish in 1962, titled “Behind The Wires of Death,” the booklet exalts its “celebrated” cartographer, Abraham Kajzer ironically the hero of the Salesian treasure hunters and Menachem Kaiser’s relative.
Translated into English and recently published in Hebrew the slim booklet is far more than a treasure hunter’s manual. Its pages contain the story of an “uncelebrated person,” Abraham Kajzer, an unflinching gladiator, with an immutable will to survive his imprisonment within the very Reise tunnels the author endeavors to explore. The Kaiser-Kajzer family connection becomes the marrow of author Menachem Kaiser’s prize-winning memoir as he awaits his “slam dunk case”, the Polish court’s ‘imminent’ decision, regards the reclamation claim.