Notes from the Other Side of Night: From Communism to a Fragile Freedom

A lyrical memoir of living under, and escaping from, anti-Semitism and the tyranny of communism.

“There are scenes in this book that the reader will never forget.”—Mircea Eliade

With a new Afterword by the author and a new Introduction by bestselling historian Wilfred M. McClay

In Notes from the Other Side of Night, Juliana Geran Pilon provides a beautiful memoir of a return to her native Romania in 1975, which she left with her family when she was just fourteen. Poetically weaving together hard-won adult insights with her childhood perceptions, Pilon tells the haunting stories of her parents, grandparents, neighbors, and friends. She recounts the chilling realities of anti-Semitism, political imprisonment, and judicial execution under Romania’s ruthless communist authorities. And she remembers those few who managed to retain their humanity despite the horrors that surrounded them.

Told with detached melancholy, the result is a book full of political and spiritual wisdom. At a time when the totalitarian crimes of the last century are being minimized, if not entirely ignored, Pilon’s meditation on evil, hope, and love is profoundly moving.

Juliana Geran Pilon is a Senior Fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, where she has directed AHI’s Washington Program on National Security since 2016. Her books include: An Idea Betrayed: Jews, Liberalism, and the American Left; The Utopian Conceit and the War on Freedom; The Art of Peace: Engaging a Complex World; Soulmates: Resurrecting Eve; the anthology Cultural Intelligence for Winning the Peace; Why America is Such a Hard Sell: Beyond Pride and Prejudice; the anthology Every Vote Counts: The Role of Elections in Building Democracy, which she co-edited with Richard Soudriette; and The Bloody Flag: Post-Communist Nationalism in Eastern Europe—Spotlight on Romania. The author of over two hundred fifty articles and reviews on international affairs, human rights, literature, and philosophy, she has made frequent appearances on radio and television. Her writings have recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Law & Liberty, the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), Academic Questions, the American Mind, and the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, among other places. 

Mircea Eliade (1907–86), a native of Romania, was a celebrated religious historian, philosopher, and novelist. A longtime professor at the University of Chicago, Eliade’s best-known books include A History of Religious Ideas and The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History.

Wilfred M. McClay is Professor of History at Hillsdale College, where he holds the Victor Davis Hanson Chair of Classical History and Western Civilization. He is the author several award-winning books, including The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America, Jewish Roots of American Liberty: The Impact of Hebraic Ideas on the American Story, and the bestselling Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story.