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The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel
I must admit that the plight of Eva Traube unfolded before my mind's eye in startling detail, even if it was smudged in tones of grey with the occasional flashes of color.
Escaping Paris in 1942, a sliver ahead of the rounding up of Jewish Parisians by the Nazis, Eva makes her way to Aurignon, in the Free Zone.
By a set of twisted circumstances she ends up forging papers along with a fellow forgerer and Resistance member Rémy, for Jewish children being funnelled through to Swizerland. A local priest, Père Clément, is embedded in the program. Eva and Père's discussions about God and guilt and their efforts are touching parts of the story.
Eva is determined that as new identies are being forged for the children a list of their names should be kept. Using a mathematical code sequence, the Fibonacci sequence, she and Remy record the childrens'real identities in a religious text.
Spurred on by her mother's despairing voice that the Nazis were "erasing us, and we are helping them." It becomes "very important to [her] that they are not forgotten.”
Years later in 2005, now an elderly woman, widowed Eva Traube Abrams sees that particular tome, she referred to as The Book of Lost Names being discussed in an article about the looted books of Europe.
Now in the care of Berlin’s Zentral- und Landesbibliothek library, it's seen to contain mysterious markings. After sixty-five years Eva sights the book that had meant so much to her. Her decision whether to go Berlin or not to see for herself after all these years has her re-examining her buried memories from that time. As readers we join with her, swinging between those frenetic, fearful times and the present.
Lightly held, with just the right amount of emotion and understandings this is a fascinating look at dark times in World War II, and French history, particularly honing in on the dangerous work done by forgerers, capturing the uncertainty and dedication for many.
A Gallery Books ARC via NetGalley
*****
I must admit that the plight of Eva Traube unfolded before my mind's eye in startling detail, even if it was smudged in tones of grey with the occasional flashes of color.
Escaping Paris in 1942, a sliver ahead of the rounding up of Jewish Parisians by the Nazis, Eva makes her way to Aurignon, in the Free Zone.
By a set of twisted circumstances she ends up forging papers along with a fellow forgerer and Resistance member Rémy, for Jewish children being funnelled through to Swizerland. A local priest, Père Clément, is embedded in the program. Eva and Père's discussions about God and guilt and their efforts are touching parts of the story.
Eva is determined that as new identies are being forged for the children a list of their names should be kept. Using a mathematical code sequence, the Fibonacci sequence, she and Remy record the childrens'real identities in a religious text.
Spurred on by her mother's despairing voice that the Nazis were "erasing us, and we are helping them." It becomes "very important to [her] that they are not forgotten.”
Years later in 2005, now an elderly woman, widowed Eva Traube Abrams sees that particular tome, she referred to as The Book of Lost Names being discussed in an article about the looted books of Europe.
Now in the care of Berlin’s Zentral- und Landesbibliothek library, it's seen to contain mysterious markings. After sixty-five years Eva sights the book that had meant so much to her. Her decision whether to go Berlin or not to see for herself after all these years has her re-examining her buried memories from that time. As readers we join with her, swinging between those frenetic, fearful times and the present.
Lightly held, with just the right amount of emotion and understandings this is a fascinating look at dark times in World War II, and French history, particularly honing in on the dangerous work done by forgerers, capturing the uncertainty and dedication for many.
A Gallery Books ARC via NetGalley
*****
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