Shoshanna's Story: A Mother, a Daughter, and the Shadows of History

At the end of World War II, Shoshanna, a survivor of Auschwitz, made her way home to Hungary. Of all her family, only she and one sister survived the camps. Years before, her young officer husband had disappeared into Russia. Believing herself a widow, Shoshanna fell under the protection of an older man who, like her, had lost everything in the Holocaust. Having given birth to this man’s child before her beloved soldier returned, she made a choice that would cloud her life—and her daughter’s—ever after.

Elaine Kalman Naves is the daughter whose earliest memories were shaped by the consequences of her mother’s decision as well as by haunting family tales. Shoshanna raised Elaine amid a wealth of family lore and all-too-vivid memories: the glamorous and eccentric aunts, handsome suitors and faithless husbands, death by order of the state, and murder at the hand of a lover. This is a lush and exotic family memoir set against momentous events, yet timeless in its truth-telling lessons.