Review by Booklist Review
Czeslawa Kwoka was a young Polish Catholic girl killed at Auschwitz in 1943. Upon her arrival at the concentration camp, Czeslawa was photographed as part of cataloging the incoming prisoners. Tuck's (Heathcliff Redux and Other Stories, 2020) profound historical novel imagines Czeslawa's life leading up to this photograph and during her time at Auschwitz. In the novel, Czeslawa and her parents live on their farm in the southeast region of Poland. Just 14 years old, Czeslawa is on the cusp of adolescence, having had an enthralling date with an older boy and eager to hear about her mother's own childhood romances. After the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Czeslawa and her family are forcibly expelled from their home to make way for German resettlers. Czeslawa's father is executed, and Czeslawa and her mother, along with others in the surrounding villages, are deported to Auschwitz. Here Czeslawa draws from her memories and connections to others amidst the squalid, horrific conditions. Tuck intersperses Czeslawa's haunting narrative with varied historical accounts and figures, holding a resolute eye on the atrocities of the time and the lives cut short.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Tuck (Sisters) draws on the true story of a Polish Catholic girl who died in Auschwitz in her unflinching latest. The reader first meets Czeslawa Kwoka shortly before the German invasion in 1939. She lives on a rustic farm with her hardworking, "tired and too thin" mother, Katarzyna, and father, Pawel, where she tends to the family's livestock and is smitten with an older local boy named Anton. In 1941, the Nazis implement Hitler's Germanization plan and seize land from local farmers. When her father and uncle protest, they're killed by Nazi soldiers. The following year, Czeslawa, now 14, is sent with Katarzyna to Auschwitz, where they are interned alongside camp photographer Wilhelm Brasse, whose images of Czeslawa and other children in the camp inspired Tuck to write the novel. Tuck also chronicles Anton's escape from the Nazis and subsequent capture by the Russians, who imprison him in Siberia. With graphic imagery and lyrical prose, Tuck vividly evokes Czeslawa's innocence and resilience, as she tries to hold out hope by imagining Anton in Auschwitz with her. It's an unforgettable portrait of buoyant youth in the grimmest of places. (Dec.)Correction: A previous version of this review mischaracterized the reason why the protagonist's father and uncle were killed. The review has also been updated for clarity.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The haunting story of one real-life Polish teenager amplifies the infinite horror of Auschwitz. Fourteen-year-old Czeslawa lives with her parents on a rural farm in the Zamość region of Poland. It's not an easy life. Czeslawa's parents, who are Catholic, don't own the property they live on. Hitler's program to rid Poland of Poles and repopulate the country with Germans is first executed in Zamość, and more than 100,000 residents are removed from the area, with the least fortunate sent to Auschwitz. When Czeslawa and her mother arrive in the camp and are stripped of their belongings, shaved of their hair, tattooed with identification numbers, and photographed for the camp's extensive records, the reality of their dire circumstances--and their helplessness to do anything about it--becomes apparent. Czeslawa's actual existence was documented by Wilhelm Brasse, the photographer at Auschwitz. Brasse, himself of Austrian and Polish descent and imprisoned at the camp, was chosen for the position due to his background in photography and his ability to speak German. Tuck became aware of Czeslawa when she happened upon Brasse's obituary--which included three of his photos of the teen--in theNew York Times. With myriad references to the historical realities of the Holocaust, the work beautifully interweaves Tuck's imagined story of Czeslawa's constrained life before the German occupation and the hideous conditions she faced during her short, brutal months at Auschwitz. Extensively annotated and researched, Tuck's brief novel returns, time and time again, to the subject of memories, a theme alluded to in an epigraph consisting of a fragment of a Louise Glück poem. The author's skillful blending of facts and fiction reanimates the memory of one of the countless lost children of the Holocaust. A painful, essential, unflinching memento. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
