r.vivian literary agency

1939 is a happy summer for Esther Gutman. First loves, school, skating ... His is an ordinary adolescence in Lódź, the second largest city in Poland, where he lives with his parents and his sister. But in September of the same year everything changes: with the Nazi invasion the conditions for the Jews become increasingly harsh. So the father, realizing that staying in the city has become too risky, decides to join his brother in his country of origin, Chmielnik. Here, Esther meets Ezjel Lederman, a young Zionist student with a strong and upright character. A friendship was born between them made of walks in the ghetto and long chats in search of a lost normality, until in October 1942 the situation worsened. Esther's father is deported to a labor camp and Ezjel also has to leave her: he is leaving with his brother and parents to take refuge in the home of the Zal, a family of Polish Catholics. Information that will save her life. Shortly after, in fact, Esther decides to seek help from them, while her mother and sister are captured by the Nazis. He will never see them again. More than sixty years later and after a happy marriage, Esther feels the need to relive in this intense memoir, enriched by the reflections of her husband Ezjel, the twenty-two months spent hidden on the Zal farm, until the liberation by the Red Army. . And then he tells how together with the Ledermans he found refuge in Germany to finally be able to adventurously land in the United States. A story of escape and salvation, told with the clear and hopeful gaze of a strong woman, capable of seeing solidarity and courage even in a time that never ceases to terrify for its tragic nature.