by Elaine Arthur

Created on: January 24, 2010

As a child growing up in the 1960s, Daniel Mendelsohn often caught his elderly relatives crying, reminded by his face of a family member who disappeared from the earth in the first half of the 1940s.  This uncle Samuel, or Shmiel, had journeyed from Bolechow, a village claimed at various times by Austria-Hungary, Ukraine, and Poland, to the United States early in the 20th century.  However, whereas other relatives stayed on as Americans (and one went instead to Palestine), Shmiel saw potential for good opportunities right in his hometown.  His family had lived there and owned businesses for hundreds of years.  While there were occasional political upheavals and attacks against Jews, Shmiel felt secure enough in his decision to return to Bolechow, where he married and fathered four daughters.

In 1939, Shmiel began writing to his family in the United States, describing unforeseen changes in the government's approach to his livelihood.  One of his trucks was damaged, and as he struggled to earn enough money for repair or replacement, he was also being charged for expensive business permits.  Suddenly, it seemed, Jews had fallen out of favor with officials who now answered to a man named Hitler. 

Daniel Mendelsohn began reading these letters after his beloved grandfather (Shmiel's brother) died.  The fate of Shmiel, his wife and their daughters was a whispered family tragedy, shrouded in secrets.  "Killed by the Nazis" was the blanket summary of their fate.  "Raped," "hidden," "joined up with partisans," and "betrayed" were other phrases Daniel heard throughout his early life, but he understood at a young age that it was not a good idea to ask too many questions.  The loss of this brother and his family was simply too painful.

As Mendelsohn began to craft a career as a writer, scholar and critic, he again turned his attention to this family mystery.  With the help of genealogical websites, he began piecing the story together.  The investigation took over five years and is chronicled in his book The Lost:  A Search for Six of Six Million (Harper Collins, 2006).  

The answers that come as the result of interviews with family members and neighbors from Bolechow, now in advanced old age and living in Israel, Scandinavia, Australia and the United States, paint a vivid and heartbreaking picture of one family's fate.  Much like the diary of Anne Frank, Mendelsohn's account brings us in for an

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>