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A rapturous novel of first love in a time of war-from the celebrated author of The Rhythm of Memory and The Last Van Gogh.
In pre-war Prague, the dreams of two young lovers are shattered when they are separated by the Nazi invasion. Then, decades later, thousands of miles away in New York, there's an inescapable glance of recognition between two strangers...
Providence is giving Lenka and Josef one more chance. From the glamorous ease of life in Prague before the Occupation, to the horrors of Nazi Europe, The Lost Wife explores the power of first love, the resilience of the human spirit- and the strength of memory.
In 1934 in Prague Lenka Maizel and medical student Josef Kohn fall in love. They marry as the German troops enter Prague. He pleads with her to leave the country but she refuses as she needs to be with her family. Josef manages to get to New York while his wife and in-laws are sent to the Terezin concentration camp.
In 1947 Josef the obstetrician meets Amalia from Vienna at the public library. Like him she is a war refugee who lost her family to the Nazis. Believing he is a widow they marry. However, Lenka survived the Nazis by thinking of her Josef waiting for her every day. After being freed by the allies, Lenka married twice and had one child. Thirty eight years of marriage ends for Josef when Amalia died but he knows his love lives for a ghost who died decades earlier. Several years later, Josef's grandson is marrying another war refugee Lanie's granddaughter.
This is a great historical thriller that focuses on the long term cost of WWII on the innocent. The story line rotates perspective over six decades between Lenka and Josef. The changes of life brought on by Nazis is harrowing as Jews lived in a wonderful Prague Spring only to either escape to America or sent to the camps. Alyson Richman makes a strong case that even Hitler cannot kill true love.
Harriet Klausner
9 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.This story will remain with you for a very, very long time. It was well written, happy, sad and one of the best books I've read in years. Don't pass this one up...Alyson Richman will be on my must-read list from now on!!
5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.EunieKS
Posted May 27, 2012
This is the story of the intervening years of the lives of a Jewish couple separated a few weeks after their wedding and fifty plus years later are brought together again at the wedding of their grandchildren. Josef, a pre-med student and Lenka, an art student, fall in love and marry just as Hitler’s Nazi army is about to invade Prague. Knowing as Jews they are in grave danger under Nazi control, Josef’s family finds exit visas and even secures one for Lenka. But because her parents and sister cannot get additional visas, Lenka elects to stay with them. Josef arrives in America and eventually becomes an obstetrician. Lenka and her family are sent to the Nazi ghetto of Terezin and later she and her sister are transported on to the dreaded Auschwitz camp. Each believing the other is dead, Josef marries Amalia, who also escaped the Nazis and made it to America, but so damaged in mind and soul by survivor’s guilt, she never achieves true happiness. The two raise a family and Josef is a widower of eighty-five when the grandson is to be married.
Lenka survives the war and marries an American soldier. She and her husband have one child, a daughter. After fifty-two years of marriage Lenka now in her early eighties is also widowed with a granddaughter getting married.
The author based the meeting of Lenka and Josef at their grandchildren’s wedding on an actual event in which the grandmother of the bride and the grandfather of the groom had married before WWII, and like Lenka and Josef had lost track of each other in those horrific war years.
I’ve read many, many Holocaust stories and each time wonder anew how mankind, any human, can cause another so much misery.
I loved this well written novel and its two main characters who “live” in its pages.
Eunice Boeve, Author of ride a Shadowed Trail
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 1, 2012
I love historical fiction of this genre, and this story introduced me to new ideas about the conditions in the camps. I couldn't put this book down and look forward to exploring the truth behind the fiction (as well as reading more from this author).
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 22, 2012
Great book based on actual events that occured during the holocaust. I couldnt put it down!
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted July 22, 2012
I have not posted a review ever. This book has moved me to recommend it. What a great read!
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 23, 2011
Superbly written as Josef and Lenka were getting into old age ,I was willing them to find each other.There must be many untold stories similar to this out there.Very tragic and a very moving love story
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 22, 2013
Engaging to the end-very touching that actual people were woven into the story
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted July 13, 2012
This is a story of WWII and the toll of the war on families before, during and after the war. It is so beautifully written. The descriptions and emotions are intense and spell binding. This books draws you in and, even though it is is terribly sad, you can not put it down. I often feel I can not read another Holocaust book. BUT this author is worth the emotional ride.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 8, 2012
I loved this book! I love reading about the halocaust but this is the best one yet! And im not trying to be mean but why do people have to write what the book was about on the review? Its kinda stupid. You had nothing better to write? It kinda gives it away to people who havent read it yet just saying.
1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 1, 2012
I love reading books about the Holocaust and this one is now one of my favorites. I was glad to know that some of the characters were based on real people. I highly recommend this book. I just wish I didn't devour it so quickly and I had more of the book to read!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 25, 2012
A beautifully written and heartfelt historical novel. I could not put it down and read it in one sitting... I will read it again right away as I am sad to leave the characters so quickly. Left me wanting more, but the end was perfect.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 15, 2013
I'm an avid reader and this is one of the best book's I've ever read!!!! I could not put it down....I know I will think of these characters for months to come. This would make a FANTASTIC book club selection.
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Posted April 12, 2013
If you love historical fiction and books about the holocaust this book is an essential read. I could not put it down. The characters stayed with me for days. It was captivating
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.A deep and heart-wrenching love story.
Reviewed by: Robin
Book purchased by Reviewer
Review originally posted at Romancing the Book
Review: This was a very deep and heart-wrenching story of a love between two young people in a world torn apart by war.
Ms. Richman tells us the story of young love through the eyes of those young lovers, Lenka Maisel and Josef Kohn. We follow them from the time they fell in love until the war makes them decide between love and family tearing them apart with each going different directions until years later fate brings them back together again.
Lenka lived in Prague and was from an accomplished family. She was very talented and had just been accepted to a very prestigious Art School. Lenka met whom she thought to be her one true love but would soon learn that life has a way of getting in the way. Lenka had a problem; she lived in Prague, she was Jewish and the Jew’s were on Hitler’s Hit list. All their possessions were confiscated by the Germans. They were soon left with nothing and very little freedom. Not having enough money to purchase passage out of Prague she and Josef marry quickly thinking this will help her to escape what was in store for them.
Josef also came from and accomplished family the difference between the two was that his family had money to buy safe passage out of Prague. Instead of going with Josef, Lenka could not leave her family behind. Instead she chose to stay with them where they were then sent to Terzin and Auschwitz, prison camps. While Josef left with his family to a life elsewhere.
Years go by and each of course marries different people never forgetting their love for each other. As time draws on they soon find that fate once again steps in bringing them together once again. Josef is meeting the grandmother of his grand-daughter in-law for the first time. She seems so familiar. She reminds him of someone. Could it be after all these years he has found his Lenka?
A very compelling story that takes us through the eyes of love, through years ripped apart by war and concentration camps, full circle to finding one another again so many years later, older and wiser.
Ms. Richman paints a picture of the beauty of the countryside but also the horridness of what the war did to that beauty. To the people who lived in that beauty. She writes with such passion that you can smell the stench and see the illness along with the daily life inside the concentration camps. Bringing to life the realness of being torn apart from family, friends and the ones you love. Ms. Richman gave us the hope that sometimes we may have barriers set up for us to take down and learn from but sometimes beautiful things can still come from the depths of the ugliness.
This is a story for anyone who enjoys history and romance. But, don’t start reading without your box of tissues.
The Lost Wife is lush with historical detail but doesn't read historical; it reads like the stories your mother used to tell you at bedtime, or a frail, time-worn journal you serendipitously come across in the attic. Embarking on the childhood and golden years of Lenka, the ethereal, maternal beauty—in Prague in all its glamor, 1934—this Holocaust novel evokes both the rapturous European lifestyle before the Third Reich, and the horrific and chilling concentration camps of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and Germany during World War II.
A tragic parting of lovers sets the desolate, desperate tone in Lenka and Joseph's individual tales as they each relearn to live during the war; Joseph, struggling to survive without Lenka, and Lenka, struggling just to survive. The book is composed of a beautiful back-and-forth exchange of lives that continued in the aftermath of this separation: the suffering, the dullness, the grayness, the hunger, the emptying. The Lost Wife isn't so much about romance, as it is about love—about lovers who once went wholly, completely right—that withstands the test of time and the brutality that is life.
Lenka is strong and a stubborn character, but I felt way too detached from her. She is the embodiment of how powerful the bonds of blood are, and very admirable in values, but I just couldn't connect with her or her choices. Through her eyes, readers glimpse at the injustices of Terezín and the horrors of Auschwitz, the compassion of a wife, and the duty of a daughter. Joseph is more relatable, but I couldn't stand his one-track mind. He's always loved Lenka, I understand, but how can a human be as static as to say he never loved anyone after her—not even his second wife? Human minds are more complex and open than that, in my opinion; I wish his life after Lenka had been portrayed more colorfully because that would have mystified—totally eternalized—their reunion.
This reunion is what magically brings these interwoven stories full circle. The glimpse of a smooth, white neck. The recollection of those strong, sturdy hands. The familiar glint in the eye. That are all it take for the two lovers to recognize each other—sixty years and several lifetimes after being wrenched apart.
Tastefully and delicately crafted with Alyson Richman's golden words and brimming with historical facets of the prevalent anti-Semitism throughout WWII-era Europe that oughtn't be remembered, but deserves to be exposed, The Lost Wife relays so much significance. Among the penetrating insights, include the sanctuary and solace of art, and of course, music; the danger of propaganda and how even a motherland will go to far lengths to deceive; and the ultimate triumph of a survivor: their story.
Pros: Real, raw characters // Lyrical, moving prose // Gorgeous and scary depiction of life during wartime // At times graphic, at others, tender—both frightening and redolent // Conveys the beauty of memory // Heartwarming true love // Reunion aspect is astonishing // Memories are sensual, lethargic, and dreamy
Cons: Lenka and Joseph are each a bit off... I couldn't sympathize with them completely
Verdict: Eloquent in tone and stirring in message, The Lost Wife is a Holocaust novel with sentiments on family, love, and survival. Sophie's Choice meets Atonement in Richman's exquisite story about impossible lovers—the most perfect of lovers. It is at once haunting and elegant, symbolic and graceful, and in the end, is the kind of book that'll make your heart clench and your breath shudder.
8 out of 10 hearts (4 stars): An engaging read; highly recommended.
Source: Complimentary copy provided by publisher, via Romancing the Book, in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you both!!)
Anonymous
Posted March 16, 2013
Beautiful love story Certainly got me in touch with my feelings
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted March 15, 2013
This is the first time I've read an Alyson Richman book. I love the she writes. She introduced me to an aspect of the Holacuast that I was not aware of. I did not realize that Art was allowed in some of the camps and that children were allowed to be exposed to it. I loved this book and recommend it.
Anonymous
Posted February 15, 2013
This is in the top 20 books I've ever read. It is well written and truly hard to put down. Loved it.
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Posted January 20, 2013
I loved this book. The characters are dynamic. It is a story of survival, loss and love. I would recommend your read this one.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Overview
A rapturous novel of first love in a time of war-from the celebrated author of The Rhythm of Memory and The Last Van Gogh.
In pre-war Prague, the dreams of two young lovers are shattered when they are separated by the Nazi invasion. Then, decades later, thousands of miles away in New York, there's an inescapable glance of recognition between two strangers...
Providence is giving Lenka and Josef one more chance. From the glamorous ease of life ...