Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The true story of a young Jewish woman who survived the Holocaust by escaping to Nazi Germany and hiding in plain sight.
Meet Gucia Gomolinska: smart, determined, independent, and steadfast in the face of injustice. Growing up in Poland in the 1920s and '30s, Gucia studies hard, makes friends, falls in love, and dreams of a bright future.
Her world is turned upside down when Nazis descend upon Poland, establishing in her town of Piotrkow Trybunalski the first Jewish ghetto of World War II. As the war escalates, Gucia watches friends and neighbors lose their livelihoods, their dignity, their lives.
She knows her blond hair and fair skin give her an advantage, and eventually she faces a harrowing choice: to risk the uncertain horrors of deportation to a concentration camp or the certain death if whe were caught resisting. She decides to assume a false identity as a gentile. Gucia changes her name to Danuta Barbara Tanska, nicknamed Basia, and leaves behind everything and everyone she has ever known. If she succeeds she will remain free; but if she fails she will perish.
Working from extensive interviews with her subject and in consultation with Basia's daughter, Helen Reichmann West, author Planaria Price tells this incredible life story directly in the first person in an inspiring work of narrative nonfiction.
Synopsis
A Junior Library Guild selection
Claiming My Place is the true story of a young Jewish woman who survived the Holocaust by escaping to Nazi Germany and hiding in plain sight.
Meet Barbara Reichmann, once known as Gucia Gomolinska: smart, determined, independent, and steadfast in the face of injustice. A Jew growing up in predominantly Catholic Poland during the 1920s and '30s, Gucia studies hard, makes friends, falls in love, and dreams of a bright future. Her world is turned upside down when Nazis invade Poland and establish the first Jewish ghetto of World War II in her town of Piotrkow Trybunalski. As the war escalates, Gucia and her family, friends, and neighbors suffer starvation, disease, and worse. She knows her blond hair and fair skin give her an advantage, and eventually she faces a harrowing choice: risk either the uncertain horrors of deportation to a concentration camp, or certain death if she is caught resisting. She decides to hide her identity as a Jew and adopts the gentile name Danuta Barbara Tanska. Barbara, nicknamed Basia, leaves behind everything and everyone she has ever known in order to claim a new life for herself.
Writing in the first person, author Planaria Price brings the immediacy of Barbara's voice to this true account of a young woman whose unlikely survival hinges upon the same determination and defiant spirit already evident in the six-year-old girl we meet as this story begins. The final portion of this narrative, written by Barbara's daughter, Helen Reichmann West, completes Barbara's journey from her immigration to America until her natural, timely death.
Includes maps and photographs