This fictionalized account of actual events by Kristin Harmel is beautifully written but disturbing on a content level. There are extensive author notes about groups of Jews who escaped the German ghettos in Poland and hid in the Polish forests for the duration of the war. They were constantly hunted and, therefore, constantly moving. "More than 3.3 million Jews lived in Poland on the eve of WW II--more than any other country in Europe....they made up 10 percent of Poland's population, the highest percentage of Jews anywhere in Europe...between 2.8 million and 3 million Polish Jews were murdered during the war. That's somewhere between 84 percent and 91 percent of the entire Jewish population of the country....Jewish casualties in Poland far outweighed those in any other country during the war..." ( p. 361). Those who survived were the inspiration for this story.
When she was only 2 years old, Inge JΓΌttner was kidnapped from her parents' home in Berlin and taken to live with a woman in the Nalibocka Forest. They lived off what they could hunt and gather and moved on a regular basis. Inge became Yona--a reference to the dove shaped birthmark on her wrist--and was educated through stolen books and survival experiences. She knew lots of information and she knew how to keep herself alive, even if it meant killing someone else, but she knew little of how humans interact. When her kidnapper/mentor died, Yona was in her 20's and had never been around others until she encountered a small family of escaped Jews in the forest. She saved their lives, but the wife's distrust of Yona was so great that they separated and were captured and killed. When Yona net the next and larger group of escapees, she was determined to keep them alive. And she did. She also learned about heartbreak when the head of the group partnered with her and then got involved with another woman. Yona left and went to a village where she encountered a group of nuns who were trying to prevent a massacre of the town's citizens by offering themselves as sacrifices. Yona also encounters her father, who is now a high ranking officer in the German army. When she realizes she cannot change him, she returns to her adopted family in the forest.
This was a book that taught me about a part of Jewish experience during the war with which I was totally unfamiliar. Author Harmel also researched what would be required to survive hidden in the forest, especially during the bitter winters, so this was also educational. I never cease to be amazed at man's inhumanity to their fellow humans and I strongly felt that we are headed that way again--vilifying anyone we can label as other, not just in this country, but globally. I despair that humankind will ever truly evolve on this emotional level before we wipe each other out.
Positive reviews from Publishers' Weekly.
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