Based on actual stories, ONCE WE WERE HOME by Jennifer Rosner brings to light the stories of three Jewish children and one young adult who were all victims of the Holocaust. One young boy was placed in a monastery in France for safekeeping, and a brother and sister were sent to stay with a Polish family also for safekeeping. The young woman, now twenty years after the end of WWII is an archeologist, seeks answers as to why she and her mother fled Germany all those years ago.
The characters are vividly brought to life. Readers follow their lives for twenty years during which time they undergo immeasurable changes. Lives are disrupted, names are changed and stability is almost out of reach. In this beautifully rendered book readers are granted insight into the hearts and minds of the characters. As they begin to understand why they were sent away from their homes, other questions arise. Who and what defines family? Where do they belong and what is their identity?
The stories in ONCE WE WERE HOME are moving, memorable, and heart-wrenching. Filled with emotion and thought-provoking, this is an important book by Jennifer Rosner and well worth reading. Highly recommended.
"This forgotten history of displaced WWII children and the return to their roots [is] captivating, thought-provoking, enlightening, and bittersweet." —Alka Joshi, New York Times bestselling author of The Henna Artist
"Rosner is one of my favorite authors." —Lisa Scottoline, #1 bestselling author of Eternal
From Jennifer Rosner, National Jewish Book Award Finalist and author of The Yellow Bird Sings, comes a novel based on the true stories of children stolen in the wake of World War II.
When your past is stolen, where do you belong?
Ana will never forget her mother’s face when she and her baby brother, Oskar, were sent out of their Polish ghetto and into the arms of a Christian friend. For Oskar, though, their new family is the only one he remembers. When a woman from a Jewish reclamation organization seizes them, believing she has their best interest at heart, Ana sees an opportunity to reconnect with her roots, while Oskar sees only the loss of the home he loves.
Roger grows up in a monastery in France, inventing stories and trading riddles with his best friend in a life of quiet concealment. When a relative seeks to retrieve him, the Church steals him across the Pyrenees before relinquishing him to family in Jerusalem.
Renata, a post-graduate student in archaeology, has spent her life unearthing secrets from the past--except for her own. After her mother’s death, Renata’s grief is entwined with all the questions her mother left unanswered, including why they fled Germany so quickly when Renata was a little girl.
Two decades later, they are each building lives for themselves, trying to move on from the trauma and loss that haunts them. But as their stories converge in Israel, in unexpected ways, they must each ask where and to whom they truly belong.
Beautifully evocative and tender, filled with both luminosity and anguish, Once We Were Home reveals a little-known history. Based on the true stories of children stolen during wartime, this heart-wrenching novel raises questions of complicity and responsibility, belonging and identity, good intentions and unforeseen consequences, as it confronts what it really means to find home.
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