TATAE'S PROMISE

Maysonave and Goldman’s historical novel, based on a true story, offers an account of one woman’s determination to survive the Holocaust.

Although this is a work of fiction, its protagonist, Hinda Mondlak, was Goldman’s mother, and the suffering she endures in these pages is based on actual events in her life. Just before her death in 1985, she recorded recollections of her experiences, which Goldman kept. He was traumatized by her account of the abuses she suffered at the Auschwitz concentration camp in the 1940s, but he came to believe that her story must be told to others. At the heart of his mother’s narration was a promise made by her father, whom she called “Tatae,” that she would survive to bring her family’s tale to others: “You will live; you will tell,” he’d insisted, just before his execution. In fulfilling this promise, Maysonave and Goldman rely heavily on Mondlak’s testimony, but they employ the techniques of fiction to make her story more accessible to readers. The result is effective and often painful in its detail and emotional force. Many readers will admire Hinda’s devotion to her family and her determination to resist her Nazi captors as they attempt to dehumanize her. Her story effectively reflects the larger pattern of the Holocaust, which included the expulsion of Jewish people from communities in occupied Poland, as well as their ghettoization and imprisonment in labor and death camps. This fictionalized account helps readers to see the impact of these events in intimate, devastating ways. As the story shifts to Auschwitz, the authors not only provide searing accounts of systematic abuses and executions but also offer horrific glimpses into the minds and actions of Nazi officers such as Josef Mengele. At other points, readers see how bonds of love between prisoners gave them the will to live and sustained their hopes for liberation and justice. There’s also a remarkable love story at the heart of this novel—a relationship that will surprise and delight readers for its ability to withstand the most terrible of circumstances.

A moving work about the horrors of the Holocaust.