Leslie Maitland is an award-winning former New York Times investigative
reporter whose mother and grandparents fled Germany in 1938 for France,
where, as Jews, they spent four years as refugees, the last two under
risk of Nazi deportation. In 1942 they made it onto the last boat to
escape France before the Germans sealed its harbors. Then, barred from
entering the United States, they lived in Cuba for almost two years
before emigrating to New York. This sweeping account of one family’s
escape from the turmoil of war-torn Europe hangs upon the intimate and
deeply personal story of Maitland’s mother’s passionate romance with a
Catholic Frenchman. Separated by war and her family’s disapproval, the
young lovers—Janine and Roland—lose each other for fifty years. It is a
testimony to both Maitland’s investigative skills and her devotion to
her mother that she successfully traced the lost Roland and was able to
reunite him with Janine. Unlike so many stories of love during wartime,
theirs has a happy ending.
reporter whose mother and grandparents fled Germany in 1938 for France,
where, as Jews, they spent four years as refugees, the last two under
risk of Nazi deportation. In 1942 they made it onto the last boat to
escape France before the Germans sealed its harbors. Then, barred from
entering the United States, they lived in Cuba for almost two years
before emigrating to New York. This sweeping account of one family’s
escape from the turmoil of war-torn Europe hangs upon the intimate and
deeply personal story of Maitland’s mother’s passionate romance with a
Catholic Frenchman. Separated by war and her family’s disapproval, the
young lovers—Janine and Roland—lose each other for fifty years. It is a
testimony to both Maitland’s investigative skills and her devotion to
her mother that she successfully traced the lost Roland and was able to
reunite him with Janine. Unlike so many stories of love during wartime,
theirs has a happy ending.