Where She Came from: A Daughter's Search for Her Mother's History

Rating:
Summary: Amazing personal story!!!!!!!
Review: Although this book has a slow start with a lot of historical information, once you get to the Holocaust section, you will not be able to put this book down. I read it while in Vienna and after I visited Prague. I felt so connected to my surroundings and the author that I literally felt like I was in the book. Makes the enormity of the Holocaust personal and understandable. A MUST READ FOR EVERYONE!

Rating:
Summary: Her mother's journey
Review: Helen Epstein set out to discover the histories of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother in the rich pre-world war Czech culture. Hampered by the lack of documents, she persisted in her search to understand their lives, beginning with the suicide of Josephine, which left Pepi, the author's grandmother, an orphan at the age of 8.

Graced by skilled writing and an unerring sense of what is important, Epstein's book will lead you also on a journey into the lives of these women, which were molded and constrained by attitudes towards women's roles, by prejudice against Jews, by displacements and ultimately by the camps of the Holocaust.

The emotionally wrenching story of Epstein's investigation into her family past will affect you deeply. I liked the photo of her mother, smiling broadly, holding toddler Helen loosely in her arms, as if to launch her into the much wider, much safer opportunities of life in the United States.

Rating:
Summary: Helen Epstein's Where She Came From
Review: I have just finished Helen Epstein's Where She Came From and I am unable to move. She weaves three narratives: personal, historical and Holocaust. It is one of the best books I have read, ever. I am in awe of the writer's skills and gift. It is the kind of book that makes you think about it for days, the kind of book that makes you not want to read another for a while, and certainly not one that isn't of its caliber.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, haunting and very human
Review: I was going to go to Prague (didn't make it, but that's another story) and a friend said to me, "I read this book *after* I went and I wish I'd read it *before*."

Well, as I said I didn't go to Prague, but I did read the book. It sucked me in and held me all the way through.

I not generally generally wild about literature that focuses on the Holocaust. But this book is really a lot more than that. It's part history, part detective story, part memoir. I found it gripping, engaging and moving.

Rating:
Summary: The best book on the Holocaust that I have read
Review: Maybe that's not quite right. This isn't necessarily a book about the Holocaust, although it haunts every page. But it is a book which does suggest to me the way the Holocaust shattered people's lives on every level. It slammed a curtain down on people's lives, between the time before the war and after it. Part of its effect was to obliterate the past, perhaps because nothing in the past could have prepared Helen Epstein's parents for what they would experience in the camps.

What I admire about this book is that Epstein manages to piece together a picture of her family's past despite history's best efforts to annihilate it. What's even more cheering is that this story is not all unbearable tragedy; it is a story of gutsy, neurotic women who did the best they could with their lives-- something which transcends their ethnicity, and something which will hopefully transcend time.

Rating:
Summary: Every daughter should read this book
Review: We read Helen Epstein's "Where She Came From" for our book group, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. The book has so many threads: Wonderful characters you wish you could meet in person; A view of the history of eastern Europe that is colorful and compelling; The chilling face of centuries of European anti-Semitism; Helen's personal story of discovery. It reads like a mystery at times and a love letter at others. The writing style is very clear and pleasant to read - the best of personal journalism. Having read the library's copy, I bought one of my own to share with my own family and friends.