From the Publisher
"Jews in the Garden reads like the best of narrator-guided murder-mysteries. But in this case the who-done-it is real, chilling, and makes clear why today's Polish government is so determined to keep its bloody Holocaust-era secrets." — Larry Tye, New York Times bestselling author
"A very well written book; an informative and instructive reading." — Jan T. Gross, author of Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland
"Riveting. A powerful, inspiring book which takes us to the heart of darkness in search of fates of Jews who tried to survive in hiding, in Poland, during the Holocaust. Jews in the Garden uncovers the long-forgotten, horrible, deaths at the hands of neighbors, and records the painstaking, decades-long effort to restore and to preserve the memory of the past. Judy Rakowsky’s book is a must read for all of us who care about the history of the Holocaust and about the preservation of memory of the Jewish catastrophe." — Jan Grabowski, PhD, author of the prize-winning Hunt for Jews and Night Without End
"An intriguing look into a little-understood and largely unrecognized part of Holocaust history." — Kirkus Reviews
"Rakowsky’s prose is the equal of any novelist… A thrilling blend of the personal and the historical." — Booklist
"An engrossing, engagingly written, highly researched account of a journey to find out the truth of what happened to a specific family during the Holocaust." — Library Journal STARRED Review
"Rakowsky has written a moving and sometimes shocking book that often reads like a thriller." — The New York Times
"Part memoir, part thriller." — NPR's Book of the Day
Kirkus Reviews
2023-05-09
One Holocaust survivor’s search for answers in his homeland.
Former investigative journalist Rakowsky documents the efforts of her cousin Sam to discover the fates of his relatives in Poland after the Holocaust. Sam had been among the workers who survived the era through the now-famous Oskar Schindler factory. After the fall of communism, he made his way back to Poland for what was to be the first of several visits in an attempt to trace the lives of various family members. The author accompanied him on several of these trips and provides detailed firsthand accounts of what transpired. Over the years, Rakowsky also used her journalistic skills to contribute to the search for answers via friends, public records, and local officials. Much of the book focuses on the rural county of Kazimierza, near Kraków, where Sam grew up. Upon returning, his first hope was to find cousin Hena, who was rumored to have survived the slaughter of her family after being discovered in hiding. This first search, however, led to a different discovery: the burial place of another family of relatives, the Dulas. Also routed out of hiding and murdered, the Dulas were buried in a small grave together on the property where they hid. For decades after, locals taunted the family living there about the “Jews in the garden” on their property. Both the Dulas and Hena’s family, the Rożeńeks, were murdered not by Germans but by fellow Poles near the end of the war. An important part of the author’s investigation involved the reality of bands of Polish resistance soldiers who systematically searched for and killed Jews in hiding just prior to Soviet occupation. In the process of discovery, both the author and her cousin came to find that memory of the war in Poland is a sensitive, selective, and politicized topic.
An intriguing look into a little-understood and largely unrecognized part of Holocaust history.
