2023 Book Review #20: Once We Were Home

 

I read this author's first historical fiction book some time ago.  You can find that review here.  That first one was phenomenal.  This one didn't disappoint either. 

STORY SUMMARY

Ana and Oskar, sister and little brother, are sent away by their mother from the Polish ghetto into the arms of their Christian friends Agata and Jakob. Ana will never forget her mother's face...but Oskar will only remember his new family as he was only a toddler when the children were forced to move to stay alive. 

When a woman (Eva) from a Jewish reclamation organization seizes them from the farm they are growing up on, she believes she has their best interests at heart.  Ana, now a pre-teen,  sees it as an opportunity to reconnect with her roots.  Oskar, though, only sees this move to Israel as the loss of the home he loves. 

Roger grows up in a monastery in France.  He invents stories and likes to trade riddles with his best friend Henri.  They live a quiet life of concealment. When a relative (his aunt) tries to retrieve him, the Catholic Church steals him across the Pyrenee Mountains before relinquishing him to his Jewish family in Jerusalem. 

Renata is a post-graduate student in archaeology from Oxford, England. She has spent her life unearthing secrets from the past, although she can't seem to succeed in finding her own past. After her mother's death, Renata's grief is all twisted up with questions that her mom left unanswered.  One of those questions is why they left Germany so fast when Renata was just 5 years old. 

Twenty years later, all of these children are rebuilding their lives.  They're trying to move past the trauma and loss that haunts them. But as their stories come together in Israel, in unexpected ways, they must each ask where and to whom they really belong. 

MY THOUGHTS

This is a great story based on true life happenings from World War II Germany, France, Poland, and England. It reveals a part of history that we as Americans don't know much about:  the stolen children during wartime.  It is eye-opening, tragic, warm, evocative.

There are many themes running through this book: family roots, parental responsibility/parenthood, friendship,  identity, loss, grief, abandonment, belonging, morality, community, love, death. 

I enjoyed every character introduced and the 4 main characters take turns telling their stories with a chapter devoted to each character.  The story begins in the mid-1940s and then it becomes the 1960s, ending the book in 1968.  It's a powerful look at how parents were trying to save their children from the Nazis. 

I found it intriguing that the author incorporated some elements of her first historical fiction book into this one.  The name of the little girl who plays the violin is different though. 

I like that not all of our questions...or the questions of the characters are solved in the end......

I enjoyed this book and if you like to read stories that are different from the mainstream of historical fiction set in WWII, this author is it!

In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 14 and older.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 9.