Society & Culture
Here are two books that offer unique voices on surviving Nazi occupied Europe and have several key plot points in common. Both feature women as the main characters and neither is Jewish. Both works also explore the immigrant experience in the U.S. after the war. But that’s where the similarities end. The first is a memoir. Immigrant Dreams , by Barbara Goldowski, in which the author reflects on when she was a fatherless child living with her small, impoverished family in the medieval town of Dachau. The heart of the memoir focuses on the realization of, Immigrant Dreams , after she arrives in the U.S. as a teenager. The other, a haunting novel called Paris Never Leaves You by Ellen Feldman, follows a young widow and mother of an infant daughter during the occupation. The protagonists of both narratives give thanks to their being able to immigrate to this country after the war where each succeeds in finding personal and professional satisfaction, but it’s the novel that most movingly