The Postcard

The Postcard by Anne Berest came highly recommended by a friend who knows a lot about me. She didn't steer me wrong. What a book. It's a fictionalized version of the author's family history.

In 2003, Anne's mother receives an anonymous postcard, an old postcard, with the names of her relatives that had been killed during the Holocaust. This set Anne's mother, Lelia, on a quest to learn more about the history of her family. Years later, in 2018, Anne, herself becomes obsessed with the postcard. Who were these people? Who might have sent the postcard and why?

The autobiographical novel is told as Anne's mother shares some of the stories with her daughter and then some of the research that Anne is doing on her own. There's a bit of antisemitism in Anne's daughter's classroom which Lelia believes Anne needs to take care of immediately.

The Rabinovitch family went from Moscow to Latvia to Palestine and eventually thought they'd found the perfect home in Paris when the world gears up for World War II. Anne - and her mother - feel very disconnected from their family history.

I'm disappointed with myself that I didn't highlight the passage that brought the most meaning of the book to me.I hope this won't be considered a spoiler. Anne never really feels quite Jewish and eventually she realizes that day in and day out, she's a descendant of survivors. I think I've mentioned that I was married to the child of Holocaust survivors so reading about Anne's lightbulb moment and questions I often wondered about my former husband's connection to Judaism, things clicked for me, too, in a very impactful way.

I've recommended this to others and so far, those who have read it were glad they had.