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A Family's Journey from World War I to Treblinka
by Nancy Kohner
Nancy's father was not like the other fathers in their northern English town. Elegantly dressed after the Eastern European fashion, an impeccable violin player, and never without a rose in his lapel, her father's entire essence alluded to a hidden and haunting past. Delving into the endless boxes of letters and diaries her father carried with him when he fled Czechoslovakia in 1939, her father's past finally comes to life.
There are times of joy—her grandparent's finding sanctuary in 1918 in a small town between Prague and the German border; their eldest son returning from the trenches of Verdune and Somme; the birth of their first grandchild; a growing family business. But there was also fear, as instability and danger was the permanent backdrop of their lives, and when Nazi Storm Troopers marched into Podersam, Nancy witness the disintegration of the family through their increasingly desperate letters. Some escape to England, others resort to suicide, while others make poignantly clear that this will be their last letter as they are marched toward Treblinka, in this intimate, heartbreaking, yet ultimately uplifting window into one family's heartache and legacy.
"[A]n evocative, moving but unsentimental book that captures the commonplace details of ordinary lives torn apart by the darkening cloud of world events." - Publisher Weekly
"Powerful and tender remembrances etched against history's monstrous reality. " - Kirkus Reviews
"Sadly, the instability and seeds of self-destruction in interwar Europe hang over the latter portion of the chronicle, and the movement of storm troopers into the family’s small town is anticlimactic. Nevertheless, Kohner, who died in 2006, has compiled a moving account of her family’s joys, triumphs, and sorrows." - Booklist
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