Describe the relationship between Eva and her mother.Do you think she did the right thing by keeping quiet, or should she have done more to save him? What do you imagine you would have done in this situation? What did Eva’s decision reveal about her character and what she might accomplish later in the novel? Eva watches silently from a neighbor’s apartment the night her father is taken away.Why is she finally able to open up to Ben? How do you think Ben reacted to finding out his mother’s secret? Why did Eva hide her wartime activities from her late husband and her son? Why do you think some Holocaust survivors are open to discussing their past and others aren’t? At the end of the book, she discloses the truth to Ben, though the author does not detail their conversation.

How do you think Eva’s past affected the way she raised her son, Ben? What are the different ways children of Jewish parents who survived World War II are affected by their parents’ pasts? Do you think it’s possible for parents’ (or grandparents’) trauma and/or resilience to be passed down through the generations?.

Why do you think the author introduces us to her protagonist at that stage in life? Discuss the way Eva reflects on how those around her see her as well as how she sees herself at this age.

Readers first meet Eva as an older, widowed woman with a secret past.

To facilitate those discussions, we are happy to present the following discussion guide to distribute to your book groups.īook Club Questions for The Book of Lost Names

If your chapter doesn’t already have a book group, now’s the time to start one! We encourage groups to have their own discussions about The Book of Lost Names after the interview. Local book groups are a vital part of Hadassah for many members. ET for a live online discussion with the author in an event scheduled to coincide with Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Join Hadassah Magazine Executive Editor Lisa Hostein on Wednesday, April 8 at 6 p.m. The novel’s rich portrait of Eva, a Jewish woman who becomes an unlikely keystone of an underground operation that smuggles children out of France, highlights the heroism of ordinary people during times of duress. The Book of Lost Names, best-selling author Kristin Harmel’s fifth book set during World War II, is an evocative work of historical fiction based on true accounts of document forgers who saved thousands from the Nazis. “And isn’t that the moral of the story anyhow? You can’t judge a person by their language or their place of origin-though it seems that each new generation insists upon learning that lesson for itself.”

The book of lost names harmel