The Book of Lost Names, by Kristin Harmel (2020)
The premise of this book is interesting. It is about forgers during World War II who created false documents to save French Jews during World War II. Instead, the book reads like a young adult sanitized version of Nazi-occupied France.
Eva Traube is a 20-something young woman who lives in Paris with her parents. Although Eva was born in France, her parents are Polish immigrants. As the Nazi’s begin rounding up Jews, her father is arrested, but Eva and her mother escape to a small town in southern France’s “Free Zone.” Apparently, Eva had some talent as a budding artist, thus, created some forged documents that aided in their escape.
Soon she become involved in an underground resistance group and begins forging documents to help young Jewish children escape into Switzerland. Although the dialogue is stilted and unrealistic (she asks questions that, as a Jew, she should have known), she does realize that by creating new identities for these children, she is, in effect, erasing their past. This bothers her, and she wonders how these children will be able to reunite with their parents after the war.
One of her collaborators in drafting forged documents is Rémy, a young Catholic. Together, they devised an elaborate code to identify the children with both their real names and their forged names. Eva and Rémy record these coded names in an old obscure religious text found the parish church’s library.
While Eva is working on these documents with Rémy, they form a budding romance. Her mother, however, frets about this relationship because Rémy is not Jewish. Her mother sits around and broods about her missing husband and accuses Eva of abandoning her faith.
As the War continues, Eva becomes involved in activities that stretch the imagination, especially considering that she appears as being very naïve.
This was a very quick read, and something that I could see myself enjoying when I was about 12 years old. The characters were not fully developed and the book did not depict the actual horrors and fears of living in France during the Nazi occupation.
Read: March 23, 2021
3 Stars
