Helen Epstein Where She Came From: A Daughter's Search For Her Mother's History

In this second book of her trilogy, Children of the Holocaust, Where She Came From and The Long HalfLives of Love and Trauma, Helen Epstein reconstructs the lives of three generations of CentralEuropean women her greatgrandmother Theresa her grandmother Pepi and her mother Franci all dressmakers. As in Children of the Holocaust, she creates a hybrid narrative that braids techniques of journalism, biography, and memoir, and provides a new perspective on the social and cultural history of Jewish women of the 19th and 20th centuries."With this family history, Epstein adds a vivid and telling chapter to the reconstruction of Jewish womens history, one life at a time. The settings range from the Bohemian town of Brtnice to the Belle Epoque Vienna of assimilated Jews to newly independent and cosmopolitan Prague in the 1920s, where Pepi ran a fashion salon to Auschwitz, BergenBelsen, and finally New York. It is a compelling account, one that any woman trying to recover her history will value." Kirkus Reviews"In Epsteins expert and sensitive hands, truth becomes not only stranger than fiction, but more magnetic, wise and powerful." Gloria Steinem"Written with her superb talent for storytelling, her tale is profoundly human." Elie Wiesel | Helen Epstein Where She Came From: A Daughter's Search For Her Mother's History