Review: "The Girl from Krakow" by Alex Rosenberg

This is the story of Rita Feuerstahl, a 20 year old Jewish woman from Poland during the German occupation in World War II. At first her life is simple. She marries a doctor but she soon realizes that they are not compatible but she tries to make the best of it. They eventually have a son and soon after, the occupation begins. Her husband is sent away in the army and she and her son are sent to the Polish Ghetto where she is forced to make some difficult choices. She sends her son to her parents, thinking she is saving his life but the boy never makes it. She just manages to escape with her life before the ghetto is destroyed. With false papers and an identity, she spends the rest of the occupation trying to survive and find her family.

The author did a respectable job filling in the details in both the background and stories of all the characters. You feel like you know the people and can feel their pain and suffering. All the loose ends of the plot are accounted for by the end of the novel.

Although I don’t normally ready historical fiction from this genre, this story had no problem keeping my interest. I kept turning pages and wanted to know who of the characters survived. I did feel like there was something missing though, like there was a deeper plot or meaning that I just was not picking up on.