Lisa Appignanesi was born Elsbieta Borenztejn in Pol&. Unlike other holocaust memoirs, hers is the story of how the nucleus of a family survived outside the camps, beyond the ghetto & eventually made it to the new world, where Lisa's mother found that her years of masquerading as an Aryan stood her in great stead in anti-semitic post-war Catholic Quebec. As her mother's memory fails, Lisa finds her self trying to unravel the truth about her family, searching not only for signs of her mother's lost brother
- a Jewish Schindler character, making money & saving Jews in Warsaw
- but also for the truth about how her parents managed to survive, & for her own birth certificate. It's above all the compelling story of one woman's determination not to go under, & the story of her father, who learned to make himself invisible & hide behind silent rage. This is a remarkable tale of terror, courage, deprivation, persecution, survival, & Jewish family life.