Review and Giveaway: "Claiming My Place" by Planaria Price

 Synopsis: 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 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.

  My Thoughts: Claiming My Place was a fascinating read!  It provides an intimate look at the life of Barbara Reichmann (formerly Gucia Gomolinska) in the years leading up to, during, and after World War II. Barbara's tale of survival was extraordinary and so different than anything I've read before.

One of my favorite parts about this book was all of the background information.  I really appreciated getting the full story on who Barbara was as a child and her home and family life leading up to the war.  There was a lot of detail describing her home, school, family business, and neighbors, and I enjoyed getting to see life in her Polish town through her eyes.  I think this background information helped me to see how truly devastating things were for her family when the war started.  I was also intrigued by the story of how Barbara survived the Holocaust.  I have never heard a story quite like hers! To think she was literally hiding in plain sight, in Germany!  It boggles the mind and I was in awe of her strength and fortitude throughout the war.

A big section of the book is written by Barbara's daughter, Helen, and she talks about her mother's life after the war from her point of view.  You could see how much she loved her mother and really see what an amazing life Barbara had after the war.  There were also photographs of many of the people mentioned in the book and it was really neat to get to see what everyone looked like.  It was also kind of a gut punch as a number of the photographs were of people who had not survived the Holocaust.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in World War II/Holocaust.  I enjoyed meeting Barbara and reading her tale of survival during one of the darkest periods in history. 3 1/2 stars.

About the Author:

 After graduating from Berkeley and earning a Master’s Degree in English Literature from UCLA, Planaria Price began her career teaching English to adult immigrants in Los Angeles. She has written several textbooks for University of Michigan Press ad has lectured at over 75 conferences. In addition to her passion for teaching and writing, Planaria has worked with her husband to save and restore over 30 Victorian and Craftsman homes in her historic Los Angeles neighborhood. Claiming My Place is her first book for young adults.

For more information, please visit Planaria’s website at www.planariaprice.com.

 GIVEAWAY:

During the Blog Tour, we will be giving away a signed copy of CLAIMING MY PLACE! To enter, please use the Gleam form below.

Giveaway Rules

– Giveaway ends at 11:59pm EST on March 13th. You must be 18 or older to enter.
– Giveaway is open to the US only.
– Only one entry per household.
– All giveaway entrants agree to be honest and not cheat the systems; any suspicion of fraud is decided upon by blog/site owner and the sponsor, and entrants may be disqualified at our discretion.
– The winner has 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.

Claiming My Place Tour