I have been following the growing number of WWII Fiction books out there.. All the Light We Cannot See started my interest, The Nightengale cemented it. Easy estimate is that I have hundreds of books sitting in the empty room upstairs to keep me reading for a long time.,
The Polish Girl follows very young Danusha, her rather self centered mother Anna and her younger brother as they "survive" as Jews in a war determined to destroy them....I could barely keep track of the moves this trio made during the war years...After the war, the mother Anna has various groups of acquaintances in to hear her story.....
Daunsha struggles for her mother's acceptance, but always thinks she has fallen short and that her mother really connects with the son/brother.
I found it rather hard to keep up with the switches back and forth between during the War and after the War....the best word is disjointed in my mind. the fact that it is based on a true story of a woman Malka Adler met does help to put the account in perspective. ( )

#FirstLine - Chapter One: My first memory is more is less from the age two, maybe three

This book is heartbreaking, but beautifully told. You cannot help, but feel this story so very deeply. It is one of those stories that will resonate with readers because it is fleshed out perfectly. Adler gave a voice to a portion of history that needed to be told. She ended up writing a beautiful and unforgettable story that will stay with me for a long time. A must read!!! ( )

WW2, Poland, family-dynamics, Jewish, Jews, historical-novel, historical-places-events, historical-figures, historical-research, historical-setting, history-and-culture, hitler, survival****

From toddlerhood, Danusha and her mother did whatever they had to for survival in a Poland that was, once again, invaded by Germany and later by Russia. But this time was even worse because they were Jews and Hitler had an agenda of elimination. The story is told in dual perspective as a child in Poland/adult in Israel (obviously after the war). A very emotional read.
NEVER AGAIN
I requested and received a free-book copy from Harper 360/One More Chapter via NetGalley. ( )

The Polish Girl is described as the story of a girl who just wants her mother to love her, to value her, to see her. It is that. But it is much more. It’s really the story of a little Jewish girl’s life – day by excruciating day – at the beginning to World War II when the Nazis invade Poland. Always moving, always danger, never being able to relax, to speak freely, to make friends, to tell the truth about who you are. The family is first torn apart when Danusha’s father leaves the family in order for them all to be safe, and then more so when her younger brother is left with another family so he will be safe. Even when her brother Yashu was there, he was out playing with his friends or keeping to himself. It was always Danusha and her mother. She had to stay close, whether it was in a German household where her mother was pretending to be someone else in order to work as the cook, or in later years when her mother would regale the neighbors with ever-changing stories of her life and survival.

Any story of the persecution and suffering of the Jewish people is tragic and feels even more so when the focus in on the children. Unimaginable lives they were forced to lead, and they knew nothing else. Or memories of happy times were fleeting. But what makes the story of The Polish Girl even more tragic, devastatingly more so, is the way Anna treats Danusha. Even before the war Anna behaved as if Danusha was a disappointment, not a son, not pretty enough, not smart enough, just not enough. Anna hit her, punished her, ridiculed her, and worst of all seemed indifferent to her. Even Anna’s mother, Grandmother Rosa, treated her as nothing more than a burden. Danusha may as well have been invisible. It would have been less painful.

Of course it is true that Anna was living in terrifying times, in essence a single mother having to do whatever was necessary to keep her children alive, to save them. It was not an easy life, and her memories of her early happy, secure life were bittersweet because she did not expect to ever return to that life.

But this is not Anna’s story. It’s Danusha’s. Danusha, who had to always be quiet, who had to accept whatever cruelty her mother dished out, who was always behind, pushed to the side and never at the front of the stage to anyone because the center stage always belonged to her mother.

The Polish Girl is not a happy-go-lucky book, but it is riveting. Stories like this need to be told. You can’t turn away from the details of the life Danusha lived and have to marvel at and appreciate her strength in surviving it and finding her own identity. Thanks to One More Chapter, Harper Collins Publishers for providing an advance copy of The Polish Girl via NetGalley for my honest review. I recommend it without hesitation. All opinions are my own. ( )