They arrived at Krakow’s main train station a half hour late, as Hannah had predicted. Their station, Krakow Glozny, was just northeast of the Old Town, formerly the Jewish Quarter. Some of the buildings looked like they could use a fresh coat of paint, but the town was bustling with people, mostly tourists. There were multiple cafes and bars with Jewish food as their specialty, and some restaurants featured klezmer music as well. The streets were narrow, with a mixture of three-story buildings, including a number of art galleries and antique shops with wooden shutters to go along with the historical sites. It was different from the other areas; there was a distinct bohemian feel, and Klara noticed there were no spires or churches here.
“Wow,” she said, looking all around. “You weren’t kidding – this really seems to be a fascinating place.”
Klara has spent her adult life pretty independent. After her dad left when she was six, she decided not to risk letting anyone close to her heart.
Official synopsis:
It is May 2014, and Dr. Klara Lieberman—forty-nine, single, professor of archaeology at a small liberal arts college in Maine, a contained person living a contained life—has just received a letter from her estranged mother, Bessie, that will dramatically change her life. Her father, she learns—the man who has been absent from her life for the last forty-three years, and about whom she has long been desperate for information—is dead. Has been for many years, in fact, which Bessie clearly knew. But now the Polish government is giving financial reparations for land it stole from its Jewish citizens during WWII, and Bessie wants the money. Klara has little interest in the money—but she does want answers about her father. She flies to Warsaw, determined to learn more.
In Poland, Klara begins to piece together her father’s, and her own, story. She also connects with extended family, begins a romantic relationship, and discovers her calling: repairing the hundreds of forgotten, and mostly destroyed, pre-War Jewish cemeteries in Poland. Along the way, she becomes a more integrated, embodied, and interpersonally connected individual—one with the tools to make peace with her past and, for the first time in her life, build purposefully toward a bigger future.
Klara has largely moved on from her family. Her dad left, and her mom and grandfather were people she’d rather be as far away from as possible. While she never really considered needing closure to her early years of a happy childhood that ended too soon, hearing from her mother that her father had actually been dead for almost as long as he’d been gone sets a series of things in motion for Klara, both physically and mentally.
She evolved into a whole new person during a somewhat impulsive visit to Poland to see where her father had been laid to rest. While she’s always been intelligent, determined, and successful, she now wants to be involved and passionate about her life. Everywhere she looks she sees more that she wants to be engaged in—extended family, a romantic relationship, and a real purpose that aligns with the education she gained along the way.
While this book may appear to be somewhat related to WWII on the surface, the story was really about a modern woman’s life and how strongly it was shaped by her family’s past. The book earned 4 out of 5 stars and would be good for readers who enjoy contemporary fiction, light historical fiction, and stories of Jewish families.
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Becki Bayley is a wife, mother, and reader who enjoys learning about other cultures and lives through books. Check out her other interest on Instagram where she posts as SweetlyBSquared.
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