the book of lost names by kristin harmel

Rémy escorts Eva back to Paris to seek news of her father, only to find out that he has been taken to Auschwitz-a probable death sentence. Not long after she begins forging documents in the church library, Eva meets Rémy, a fellow forger whose charm and confidence immediately intrigue her. Her artistic talents help her make a name for herself forging false documents for Jewish children to move them safely across the border to Switzerland. There, she meets Père Clément, a Catholic priest and liaison for the French resistance movement. Using her father’s connections, she brings her family to Aurignon, a small town in Free France. Her mother sinks into depression, yet Eva does not have time to grieve. The sudden arrest of Eva’s father during a mass roundup by the Nazis leaves Eva as the head of the family. The story then flashes back to young Eva, a Jewish student at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1942. She recognizes the book he is holding as one that belonged to her 60 years before and immediately books a flight to Berlin to reclaim it. She also gives us a sneak peek of her latest historical fiction, The Forest of Vanishing Stars, and shares why it’s so important to remember Holocaust survivors and their stories.The novel opens in 2005 with 86-year-old Eva Traube Abrams, a widowed librarian who spots a picture in the newspaper of a German librarian attempting to reunite books stolen by the Nazis with their previous owners. She also shares why she chose to write about the forgers of World War II and how a mathematical sequence she obsessed over as a child became an important part of her novel.Ī master of historical fiction, Harmel reveals what book ignited her love for the genre and showed her that writers can change the world.

Our host Ann Bocock sits down with Kristin Harmel to find out how she strikes a balance between fact and fiction when writing about the Holocaust. Harmel has published over a dozen novels that have been translated into 29 languages and sold all over the world. Inspired by an astonishing true story from World War II, the book follows a young female forger who helps hundreds of Jewish children flee the Nazis. International bestselling author Kristin Harmel joins us to discuss her novel, The Book of Lost Names.

The book of lost names by kristin harmel