BKMT READING GUIDES
The Polish Woman: A Novel
by Eva Mekler
Hardcover : 264 pages
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3 members have read this book
Introduction
"A meticulous, raw study of the uneasy relationship between Catholic and Jewish Poles....Told without artifice or irony, Mekler's story of intergenerational immigration [is a] cooly composed novel... Despite its literary trappings, 'The Polish Woman' is also a straightforward mystery, littered with clues, red herrings and narrators who always know less than the reader....By the time the ending veers into John Grisham territory, Mekler has already transcended plot in favor of uncompromising examination."-- Lizzie Skurnick, New York Times Book Review
The Polish Woman, set in New York and in Poland, is a gripping post-Holocaust story with a fresh, highly suspenseful mystery twist. The novel is the story of a search for the identity of an attractive young woman who appears to be a possible survivor of the Holocaust--or perhaps a cunning scam artist. When 29-year-old Karolina Staszek appears in the office of a New York Jewish lawyer, Philip Landau, in 1967, her hair wet from the cold December rain, she seems so helpless and sincere. Yet Philip does not believe her strange story--that she is the long-lost child that his Uncle Jake had paid a Catholic family to hide on its farm near Lublin, Poland, during the World War II Nazi occupation.
Jake survived the Holocaust, but believed his daughter had not. It seemed too farfetched to Philip that more than 20 years later and a month after Jake's death, she would show up, claiming she was now living in New York and by chance had read Jake's obituary and recognized his photo in the newspaper. Was she a scheming Pole who saw an opportunity to inherit Jake's fortune?
Even after the woman recalls the names of Jake's dead wife, Rachel, and the daughter, Chava, Philip retains his suspicions. The Landau family sends Karolina and Philip to Warsaw, Lublin and surrounding farm areas to search surviving records and interview residents who may remember the Landaus or the family that raised Karolina as their own, the Staszeks.
As they pursue blind leads and tantalizing but inconclusive ones--at archives, with old Lublin neighbors and with a priest and an elderly housekeeper at a church near the Staszeks' old farm--and as they encounter post-war Polish anti-Semitism, Philip and Karolina are drawn to each other. Finally they locate a man who worked on a farm adjoining the Staszeks' and who, in a startling climax, recalls witnessing events that unravel the mystery of Jake's child--and set the course of Karolina's and Philip's love and lives.
"Stunning...well-crafted....adding depth and resonance to a gripping read.Not to be missed by anyone who loves a tale well told." ----Library Journal
"Paced like a thriller, the story also comes to us in the chaste sentences of a literary master." ---Thrive NYC
"Vividly drawn characters, both major and minor...The tale itself is compelling, combining romance and mystery and reminding us of the difficulty of unearthing personal truths when one of history's great cataclysms has buried them." --- The Wall Street Journal
"A haunting portrait....Strongly evoked....The understated and moving story of a woman whose memories open so many old wounds." ----Philadelphia Inquirer
"An emotionally tantalizing tale [that] is simply and lucidly written and offers an unflinching look at Polish anti-Semitism and the destruction it wreaked on both Jewish and Polish psyches long after WWII." --Publishers Weekly
"A haunting tale of the perils of trust and mistrust....Convincing....A novel meditation on the ways we manufacture memory."--Kirkus Reviews
Excerpt
Chapter 1It had been raining since early morning. Karolina Staszek sniffed the animal scent of damp wool from winter coats and jackets that filled the overheated subway car and felt her eyes begin to itch. She pulled off a glove and rubbed her lids hard. The train was half-empty at this mid-morning hour, and most of the passengers looked half asleep. Across the aisle, a droopy-eyed student, probably on his way to classes at a Manhattan college, buried his chin in his scarf and stared at a textbook balanced on his knees. Next to him, a broad-shouldered man in workman’s boots with a metal lunch box propped on his lap slumped in his seat, dozing. ...
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Discussion Questions
From the publisher:1.How do Philip and Karolina cope with the central issue of their prejudice toward each other? Do you feel that hostility between Jew and Pole still exists?
2.How do Philip’s feelings toward Karolina change over the course of the novel? What prompts this change?
3.How does Karolina affect Philip’s sense of himself as a Jew?
4.What role did the Catholic Church play in Karolina’s past life? In the present?
5.Karolina believes she is a Jew who was hidden with Catholic Poles during WWII. What personal and spiritual dilemmas arise in her as a result of this belief?
6.How do the secondary characters in the novel affect the choices Philip and Karolina make?
7.As you read the novel, what was your guess as to Karolina's identity? Were you satisfied with the ending?
Notes From the Author to the Bookclub
NOTE FROM AUTHOR EVA MEKLER The main events in The Polish Woman center around the relationship between Poles and Jews. These groups share a long and complex history that ranges from periods of religious tolerance during portions of the Middle Ages, to the nearly complete genocidal destruction of the community by Nazi Germany. Over 3 million Jews lived in Poland before World War II. By the time the war ended 90% had perished. Afterwards, when Jewish survivors went back to what had once been their home, they found anti-Semitism still rife. In the years following the end of the war, more than 1,500 Jews were killed by local citizens. So, the Jews did what they had done so many times throughout their history. They fled. They fled and established new homes and new lives in Israel, in the United States and in any other country that would take them in. That’s how I came to America: On a ship with my parents who were smuggled out of Poland by an underground network, first to the safety of the U.S.-sponsored Displaced Persons camps, and later, 4 years later when they finally obtained visas to America. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. In one sense, I had the typical coming of age experiences of a bright, Jewish girl from Bensonhurst; in another sense, my life was bound to my family’s roots in Poland by their endless stories of the lives they had lived and lost. On my way to becoming a novelist I became a psychologist and, for some years, an actress which included performing in Yiddish theater. But the old stories from Poland and the post-war Displaced Persons camps kept bubbling up, asking to be told. To some Jews the pain of Polish anti-Semitism has led them to group the Poles with the Nazis—which infuriates Poles who were victims of the Nazis as well, losing more than 3 million Polish Christians in the war. More than sixty years have passed, yet for the Jews who fled Poland, and for their children as well, Poles and Poland are still highly charged, complex issues. [Note from the Publisher: Ms. Mekler's previous novel, Sunrise Shows Late, was set in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany. It was called "austerely beautiful" by Publishers Weekly and described by the Christian Science Monitor as "a deftly written story...told with a deep sense of compassion and a keen eye for character." Ms. Mekler, besides writing fiction, is the author of six books on the theater and on psychology.]Book Club Recommendations
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