He closes his eyes as he kisses her again, as if he were wishing something that was now impossible. That, instead of being in the cold outside the Dresden barracks, he had transported my mother and him to the street of their first kiss, or to our apartment with its view of the Vltava.
In the cold, I think of the story Father had told us of how when the swans were frozen and trapped in the river, the men and women of Prague cut them out to free them. And yet not a single one, when we were all rounded up for our transport, had come to help us.
(from The Lost Wife, page 169)
The Lost Wife is a beautifully tragic love story that begins at the end. Josef Kohn is 85 years old and attending his grandson’s wedding rehearsal dinner when he realizes the bride’s grandmother is his true love, Lenka, the woman he married just before the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia. The woman he never stopped thinking about, the woman he was told perished in Auschwitz.
Alyson Richman brings readers back to prewar Prague to show how Lenka, a young art student, and Josef, a young medical student, fell in love, and how it came to be that Josef ended up in New York and Lenka ended up in the Nazi ghetto of Terezín (or in German, Theresienstadt). The Lost Wife is beautifully told, with Josef reflecting on the life he led without Lenka, how her ghost haunted him all through his second marriage, and Lenka describing her life during the war and how the story comes full circle to her granddaughter’s wedding and her reunion with the man she remembered with passion even when she was exhausted, starving, and near death. Richman’s prose is simply beautiful, evoking romance and passion, horror and grief, and brilliantly describing Lenka’s artistic spirit.
But in order to survive in this foreign world, I had to teach myself that love was very much like a painting. The negative space between people was just as important as the positive space we occupy. The air between our resting bodies, and the breath in between our conversations, were all like the white of the canvas, and the rest [of] our relationship — the laughter and the memories — were the brushstrokes applied over time. (page 319)
I have read dozens of WWII/Holocaust novels, but until The Lost Wife, I had not read about Terezín, which was considered a model camp and touted as a city created by Hitler especially for the Jews. All of that was a lie, of course, and Lenka watches her parents and sister waste away as they work hard and subsist on rotten-smelling soup and bread made mostly from sawdust. Jews arrive at the ghetto in droves, and disease and lice are rampant due to overcrowding.
Lenka is lucky to have been given a job as an artist, where she paints postcards that are bought by the German people or draws expansion plans for the ghetto. There is resistance in the form of smuggled artwork that details the truth about conditions in the ghetto, and even music and opera are used as statements against the Nazi brutality. Richman brings to life the stories of the real artists of Terezín — their courage and ability to put the quest for truth ahead of their safety and create works of art for a higher purpose. These men and women even smuggled art supplies to the children of the ghetto, who were given the opportunity to draw and paint their hopes and dreams and the confusing changes in their lives. Some of this artwork is on display in museums right now.
The Lost Wife emphasizes the difficult decisions people in love are forced to make during times of war and chaos and how true love lives on even when all hope has been lost. There are scenes of tenderness, agony, and despair, and yet because Richman begins the story at the end, there is still hope. I didn’t want to put the book down because it was so good, but at some points, it hurt too much to continue so I had to lay it down for a bit. I cried several times while reading The Lost Wife, but to be so affected by an author’s writing and to fall so in love with the characters are, to me, signs of a fantastic book.
Disclosure: I received a copy of The Lost Wife from Berkley/Penguin for review purposes. I am an IndieBound affiliate and an Amazon associate.
© 2011 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.
Oh dear – your review made me cry, but in a good way. This is definitely going on my to-read list.
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If my review made you cry, you better stock up on tissues before you read the book! 😉
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Wonderful review, Anna! I will definitely add this book to my list.
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Thanks, Beth! It’s a must-read!
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I’ve never heard of Terezin either, but I have no doubt it was a lie. This book sounds beautiful.
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I hope you get a chance to read it!
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I’m looking forward to reading this.
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I hope you love it as much as I did!
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OMG, I want to read this! By the way, Terezin is more commonly known in the U.S. as Theresienstadt so you might have heard of it as that name.
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I’d heard of Terezin and new it was Theresiendstadt in German. I’d just never read about it until this book.
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Wow, this sounds fantastic! Thanks for the suggestion.
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My pleasure! Hope you have a chance to read it!
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I have been to Theresinenstadt. Of course now it was all green and lush, and you could see they tried their best for it to be a model camp and not the horror it was. So horrible.
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I’m sure it’s all cleaned up now. I bet having been there would make reading this book a richer experience.
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This sounds like a must-read book for any fans of WWII fiction. The set up sounds so interesting!
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Definitely! Hope you give it a try!
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Oh, and well done on 34 books for the Historical Tapestry challenge! I stopped counting once I hit 20!
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Thanks! I keep count because it’s the one challenge I’m going all the way with!
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I loved your review and have added this to my Amazon wish list.
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Thanks! I hope you get to read it.
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Thank you so much for such a beautiful review of my novel! I’m so happy you enjoyed the book, especially that you came away having learned more about the artists of Terezin. –alyson richman
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You’re very welcome! Thanks for stopping by.
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Oh, I really must read this! I will have to see if my library has it!
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I think you’d enjoy it. Hope you get your hands on a copy!
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Each time I hear about the premise of this book, I get so sad. I think of all those lost years they could have had together. Sounds like a wonderful mix of history and emotion.
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It is a very sad book, but I’m glad Richman starts it at the end so there’s some hope.
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This one sounds fantastic. I’m adding this to my wish list. Great review!
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Thank you!
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This sounds so interesting to me! Thanks for pointing it out!
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My pleasure! Hope you give it a try!
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This sounds wonderful Anna. I need to read this one. Great review.
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Thanks, Naida!
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I’m glad you enjoyed it, Anna! I look forward to reading it!
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I can’t wait to hear what you think of it!
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I knew you would love this one! It is the best book I’ve read this year. The characters are still with me. Your wonderful review brought back to me how beautifully written this book is.
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It’s on my “best of 2011” list, too!
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Seems like a wonderful book. I have actually heard of relatives/lovers reunited for years, sometimes decades after WWII and it never ceases to amaze me.
Definitely on my TBR list.
http://www.ManOfLabook.com
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I imagine there were many lost loves and many reunions. I hope you get a chance to read it.
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Want/need!! Wow — I had no idea this was the plot — I love the cover — and I’m almost teary just at the set up. I’m so going to get this one — it sounds amazing!!
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I hope you love it as much as I did! I can’t wait to hear what you think of it!
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Whoa, this sounds incredible — so incredible that I can’t believe it’s escaped my attention until now! Despite studying the Holocaust, I’ve never heard of Terezín. Definitely adding it to my wishlist.
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Meg, I hope you love it as much as I did!
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Sounds like a brilliant book, touching, heartbreaking but hopeful. Beautiful review.
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Thanks, Laura! It was all of those things and more.
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