A tour de force historical mystery from Monica Hesse, the bestselling and award-winning author of Girl in the Blue Coat.
Germany, 1945. The soldiers who liberated the Gross-Rosen concentration camp said the war was over, but nothing feels over to eighteen-year-old Zofia Lederman. Her body has barely begun to heal; her mind feels broken. And her life is completely shattered: Three years ago, … broken. And her life is completely shattered: Three years ago, she and her younger brother, Abek, were the only members of their family to be sent to the right, away from the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Everyone else–her parents, her grandmother, radiant Aunt Maja–they went left.
Zofia’s last words to her brother were a promise: Abek to Zofia, A to Z. When I find you again, we will fill our alphabet. Now her journey to fulfill that vow takes her through Poland and Germany, and into a displaced persons camp where everyone she meets is trying to piece together a future from a painful past: Miriam, desperately searching for the twin she was separated from after they survived medical experimentation. Breine, a former heiress, who now longs only for a simple wedding with her new fiancé. And Josef, who guards his past behind a wall of secrets, and is beautiful and strange and magnetic all at once.
But the deeper Zofia digs, the more impossible her search seems. How can she find one boy in a sea of the missing? In the rubble of a broken continent, Zofia must delve into a mystery whose answers could break her–or help her rebuild her world.
This book was amazing. I just wish that Zofia and Josef stayed together
FIVE CHOOSE TO LOVE STARS!!
After the last year or more we have lost a lot of hope in the world and the happier times that we once had seem so far away. I’ve had They Went Left for about a year now but I could never bring myself to read it because I knew it was going to be a tough book to get through. It caught my attention yesterday on my bookshelf and I decided to give it a shot because for some reason I felt like this book would be more about hope than anything and I was right. Yes, this story was heartbreaking, haunting and about a dozen other adjectives but most of all this book was about hope. Hope for Zofia finding her brother, hope for the future and hope that everything would be OK despite what happened in the camps.
The meaning behind the name of this book is so chilling but it has such a deeper meaning than what I was originally thinking. Zofia has been through so much to survive Auschwitz-Birkenau but in doing that she learns from those she meets on the journey to find her brother. So much hope is in these pages that you just can’t help but wish for a better future for Zofia, Josef (even knowing what I know), Miriam, Breine and Abek. The Holocaust is one of those points in history that will make anyone’s heartbreak but for the first time in ages I feel hope. Monica Hesse gave me hope for a better world because if Zofia can continue on after what she has been through then all of us can.
The after Death Camp story. This heart wrenching story, will keep you up reading until the last word.
A new view of WWII. Hesse informs us of the post-war camps established for displaced Jews to try to locate their families and begin to think about the future and moving forward. Historically accurate with a brilliant twist. Informative, page-turner with endearing characters.
Loved it from the very first page!!!
Choose to love.
When everything seems hopeless, when you’re coming out of something that seemed unsurvivable, when you’re overwhelmed beyond belief, you can still choose to love.
They Went Left is one of those books that ties your stomach in knots, and makes you want to cry out in anger, but when you’re done, you know you have changed. You have a better understanding of decency, kindness and compassion, and how necessary it is to let these guide your daily actions.
Most WWII genocide stories start before the war, or while European Jews were being sent to the concentration camps. This novel, like Cilka’s Journey, shows us the aftermath — how difficult it can be to survive the unthinkable, and the continuing hell of putting together a life and family torn apart by such evil as the Holocaust.
Heartwrenching, haunting, and hopeful!
They Went Left is a poignant, compelling tale that sweeps you away to post-war Germany and into the life of Zofia Lederman, a young Jewish girl who after being liberated from a Nazi concentration camp and with a mind traumatized by cruelty and violence travels from her home town in Poland to the Foehrenwald Displaced Persons Camp to search for the one family member who may not be lost forever and that she swore to protect, her younger brother, Abek.
The prose is raw and tense. The characters are vulnerable, tortured, and resilient. And the plot is a moving tale about life, love, bravery, strength, loss, deception, hope, survival, and the enduring aftereffects of war.
Overall, They Went Left is a lovely blend of historical facts, realistic fiction, and palpable emotion that does a beautiful job of reminding us that even after suffering the most unimaginable cruelty and wickedness humanity still has an innate ability to want to love and be loved.