The Book of Lost Names, by Kristin Harmel

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 

The Tattooist of Auschwitz, by Heather Morris

The Tattooist of Auschwitz, by Heather Morris (2018)

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is based on the experiences of Lale Sokolov and Gita Furman who were deported to Auschwitz in the early 1940s, and remained there until the end of World War II.

Lale was a young Slovakian Jew who was rounded up, ostensibly for construction work, in 1942.  He soon found himself a prisoner at Auschwitz.  At the time he was taken, he was not aware of the full extent of Nazi actions.  Because he spoke several languages, he became the assistant to a French Jew named Pepan, the tattooist.  Pepan took Lale under his wing and taught him the art of tattooing.  Although he despised the work, he learned to keep his head down and tattooed the numbers on the arms of Jews entering the camp.  One day his tattooist mentor disappeared, he Lale became the primary tattooist.  This position gave him privileges not afforded other prisoners.

One day, he tattooed the arm of a young women.  Although she had already been shorn of her hair, he thought she was beautiful.  He learned her name was Gita and she was a prisoner at Birkenau.  She, too, was given a “job” at Auschwitz, which provided her with some protections.  The two young people were able to arrange meetings and they fell in love.

Because of Lale’s position and privileges, he was able to smuggle extra rations of food and clothing to some of the other prisoners.  Lale did what he had to do to survive and to try to keep some of his fellow prisoners alive.

When the War ended, Lale and Gita were separated, however, they continued to search for each other, as well as their family members.  Ultimately, they found each other and after the War, they married.  They ended up living in Australia.  He kept his work as at tattooist secret for many years for fear that he would be considered a Nazi collaborator since his work in the Auschwitz kept him alive.

After Gita died, Lale met with the author and told his story.  It is a fascinating tale of love and survival amid unthinkable horror.

Read:  November 19, 2019

4 Stars