Homelands

The history of a friendship Edinburgh

Abstract

According to its cover, Homelands is a memoir about two unlikely friends. One (the author) was born in 1970s Britain to Indian immigrant parents. The other, Henry Wuga, a young Jewish boy who fled persecution in Nazi Germany in 1939.  While the book covers many important topics including migration, racism, family, belonging, love, and loss, it is not in any obvious way just the story of a friendship. Instead, the author chronicles Henry's life and times, its triumphs and tribulations, its highs and lows. Henry escapes almost certain death in coming to Britain on the Kindertransport. He lives with a sponsor family before being interned as an alien, and eventually released in Glasgow where he meets Ingrid his future wife, who also arrived via the Kindertransport. Henry becomes a highly successful chef and caterer but over time his main contribution is as a curator of the truth about the Holocaust. His life says much about what it means to be a survivor, to overcome grief, and to negotiate the move from one country and culture to another. These themes are elaborated by Ramaswamy as she reflects on the experience of her own immigrant family and, indeed, her own life.