I have read and enjoyed many memoirs and novels set in and around the WW2 era and this one was no exception. Set in Poland, Germany and Israel alternately during and after the war, it chronicles the story of a young girl Danusha and her family. Based on a true story, I found it very moving and sad, but ultimately uplifting. The alternate timeline worked well and I liked the perspective of having the story told mostly by Danusha as a child. A little like Anne Frank in some ways.
With thanks to NetGalley, HarperCollins UK and One More Chapter for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

I liked this book. It is about a Jewish family and is set in WW2. I found it a compelling read. It told the story of a family with complicated relationships. Although it is about the harrowing times the family experienced during and just after the war, the book also explores family relationships that many of us can relate to. This book is rooted in fact. These are the reasons I liked the book.
The main theme of the story is about the relationship of a daughter and her mother, the book switches to hear both their accounts, which are not always remembered the same. This seems to give a better picture of their lives and is reality for all our memories.

The Polish Girl by Malka Adleris the second book I have read from this author. This book is based on a true story
tells the story of Danusha and her family who are a Jewish family, that are forced to flee their home when the Nazis invade Poland in WWII.

This book was a lovely but emotional read. I really enjoyed this book

Big Thank you to One More Chapter and NetGalley for the early read.

I've finished this book and I can't tell if I liked it or not. I read it in a day so it was nice and easy to read but I'm not sure I liked how it was written. I didn't really connect with the main character, and when I started reading it I had no idea it was based on a real-life ( i think I missed that bit on the cover) but I just would rather have heard from other side characters.
I generally avoid books based in that time because of family connections and because they emotionally hit me for six but this book didn't bring any emotion out at all.

This was a interesting if somewhat slow read for me. I liked that it was told from a child's perspective for Danusha's part. I did not like the mother, Anna at all. I understand she did what she thought she had to do for them to survive and that is fine, but I cannot forgive her for making Danusha feel like she wasn't worth anything, for making her feel "less Than"her brother. That is the part I just couldn't get my head around in this story. I don't want to give away too many spoilers so I will just say this, if you can get past disliking Anna, then it is a really good story and well written and researched. It paints a stark picture of the times for the poor family and the turmoil that the children experienced is unconceivable to us today. How lost and afraid they had to have been. I felt for poor Danusha from the very beginning and it heart my heart that her mother never gave her the warm loving care and security a child looks for from their parents.
I would recommend this book to WWII historical fiction fans, just be prepared for your heart to ache for little Danusha. Thank you to the publishers at Harper ?Collins and to Net Galley for the free ARC, I am leaving my honest review in return.

I really had a hard time reading this book. I’m sure others may like this historical fiction story.
Sorry to say, it was a struggle to read this to the end.
I will reread it at a later time and see how I feel about it then.
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read this book for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are solely my own.

Really enjoyed this historical book, which tells the story a a Jewish family who have to flee Poland and their home when the Nazi invade in World War 2.. Where to go, how to keep safe with 2 young children. But against all the odds they did.

Very interesting story which allowed me an easier overview of Polish history , I have always found well researched fiction to be a great way of accessing history and often recommended to history F.E students. Very well written with complex characters however a little heavy going at times ( maybe that I have been reading easier access fiction recently) . Thank you Netgalley, publisher and author for ARC.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of Malka Adler's "The Polish Girl".
This was a heartbreaking story and definitely worthy of sharing. Having said this, the written style was a bit hard to follow which made it harder for me to engage with the story and characters.

When the Nazis arrive in their Polish town, Anna and her family are forced to flee. Finding a position in a the home of a German officer and his family allows them to basically hide in plain sight, as so many Jewish people did during this horrific war.

A heart breaking true story of a mother disappointed that she didn't have a first born son and a daughter wanting to be loved. Set in WW2 and recounted over a dual timeline, their safety is in danger and they must do whatever it takes to survive. Sometimes the truth hurts. A very emotional read.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book. It was a good story but I found the authors writing style some what difficult to follow at times .

Thank you NetGalley for this emotional story based on true events of the Holocaust.
Such an inspiring novel and heartfelt writing.
I highly recommend!

This is a fictional account of a young girl growing up during the holocaust based on the true reflections of a holocaust survivor. Born the fist child of a self obsessed mother who had convinced herself her first born would be a much longed for son, the mother child relationship was beset with problems from day one. These unresolved issues were doubled with not only the birth of a second male child but the onset of nazi emergence. Her experiences growing up during the terrors and hardships of the war and dependency of her mother for her, and her upon her mother result in an unhealthy reliance and relationship that impacts on the child both physically and mentally. The long journey portrayed in harrowing detail through the travails of both war and family relationships often prove difficult to read towards a conclusion that often seemed interminable in her search for peace and love, if at long last she could ever be able to discover her true identity. Many thanks to author, publisher and NetGalley for this ARC.

While I found the authors writing style quite difficult to navigate it is a heartbreaking storyline.
Set in WW11 in a polish village under Nazi occupation the polish girl it told through the eyes of a young girl called Danusha.
It is based on a true story of her childhood memories during that time & the turbulent relationship she had with her mother runs along side this.
While the factual elements of this time always hold an interest to me it was a bit disjointed as I did get a little lost at times.

The Polish Girl is a WW2 historical fiction novel set in Poland.

It follows Danusha and her family as they frequently move around Poland looking for somewhere safe to hide from the Nazis, eventually ending up hidden in plain sight in the home of a Nazi officer and his family.

The historical facts the novel is based on is a fascinating look at how some Jewish people survived the war. The constant tension, moving and fleeing in the night is dreadful.

Danusha has a difficult relationship with her mother, who wanted her first born to be a son and makes that very obvious. Anna, her mother, is a very unlikeable character throughout the book.

Unfortunately I found Danusha quite hard to connect to as well. I’m not sure if this is because the book is mainly told through her view point, and she is a young child for most of it.
I also found some of the storyline a bit disjointed, some storylines felt unresolved or weren’t followed through.

Due to the factual elements of the book I did finish and generally enjoy reading it.

An interesting account based on a true story about a Jewish family living in a Polish village under Nazi occupation. The narrative viewpoint is interesting in that it’s narrated by a young girl who is relating the story being told by her mother, now living in Israel, to an audience who appear captivated by it. The child’s memories of the events and her distant relationship with her mother run alongside her mother’s narrative, which is different. That said, I wasn’t fully engaged with the story and did not find the characters particularly warm or likeable.

With thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an advance copy to review,

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

sorry to say this one didnt grab my attention and i tried very much to get into it...

not my cup of tea

This was a fascinating story about a Jewish family during the second World War. It was a very sad but also revealing story about the hardships and trauma that Jewish people experienced and the strength, initiative and fortitude required to survive.

The Polish Girl is described as the story of a girl who just wants her mother to love her, to value her, to see her. It is that. But it is much more. It’s really the story of a little Jewish girl’s life – day by excruciating day – at the beginning to World War II when the Nazis invade Poland. Always moving, always danger, never being able to relax, to speak freely, to make friends, to tell the truth about who you are. The family is first torn apart when Danusha’s father leaves the family in order for them all to be safe, and then more so when her younger brother is left with another family so he will be safe. Even when her brother Yashu was there, he was out playing with his friends or keeping to himself. It was always Danusha and her mother. She had to stay close, whether it was in a German household where her mother was pretending to be someone else in order to work as the cook, or in later years when her mother would regale the neighbors with ever-changing stories of her life and survival.

Any story of the persecution and suffering of the Jewish people is tragic and feels even more so when the focus in on the children. Unimaginable lives they were forced to lead, and they knew nothing else. Or memories of happy times were fleeting. But what makes the story of The Polish Girl even more tragic, devastatingly more so, is the way Anna treats Danusha. Even before the war Anna behaved as if Danusha was a disappointment, not a son, not pretty enough, not smart enough, just not enough. Anna hit her, punished her, ridiculed her, and worst of all seemed indifferent to her. Even Anna’s mother, Grandmother Rosa, treated her as nothing more than a burden. Danusha may as well have been invisible. It would have been less painful.

Of course it is true that Anna was living in terrifying times, in essence a single mother having to do whatever was necessary to keep her children alive, to save them. It was not an easy life, and her memories of her early happy, secure life were bittersweet because she did not expect to ever return to that life.

But this is not Anna’s story. It’s Danusha’s. Danusha, who had to always be quiet, who had to accept whatever cruelty her mother dished out, who was always behind, pushed to the side and never at the front of the stage to anyone because the center stage always belonged to her mother.

The Polish Girl is not a happy-go-lucky book, but it is riveting. Stories like this need to be told. You can’t turn away from the details of the life Danusha lived and have to marvel at and appreciate her strength in surviving it and finding her own identity. Thanks to One More Chapter, Harper Collins Publishers for providing an advance copy of The Polish Girl via NetGalley for my honest review. I recommend it without hesitation. All opinions are my own