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  • They Went Left by Monica Hesse book cover
  • They Went Left by Monica Hesse book cover
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They Went Left

by Monica Hesse

A search for family after liberation

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AlbakiReads Editorial

A search for family after liberation

Set in Germany and Poland in 1945, Monica Hesse’s novel follows eighteen-year-old Zofia Lederman as she searches for her younger brother, Abek, after their separation during the Holocaust. Her promise to find him gives the journey a clear purpose, while the displaced persons camp brings her into contact with others trying to locate loved ones and imagine a future after profound loss. The story connects one family’s search with the wider upheaval of postwar Europe, focusing on separation, survival, memory, and the difficult work of rebuilding lives.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Teens and young adults interested in historical fiction about the Holocaust and its aftermath.
  • Readers drawn to stories about family separation, searching for loved ones, and postwar displacement.

Themes

Family and separationHolocaust and its aftermathSurvivalDisplacementRebuilding after loss

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

In the rubble of a broken continent, a girl must solve a mystery whose answers could rebuild her family--or break her completely, in this New York Times bestselling, critically acclaimed tour de force historical novel from Monica Hesse, author of Girl in the Blue Coat.

Germany, 1945. The soldiers who liberated the Gross-Rosen concentration camp say the war is 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, 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, 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 fianc
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