The War Girls: A WW2 Novel of Sisterhood and Survival
The War Girls opens in 1939, as the middle-class Polish Jewish family in which Stefa and Hanna Majewski grew up faces Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland. One sister, Hanna, has already left home, unwilling to submit to an arranged marriage and other conventions of observant Jewish life of the time. The other, Stefa, is bold enough to ask the family to accept the boyfriend she’s already found, and after “losing” one daughter, there is enough emotional pain at home to make this seem possible.
Page by page, Alexander portrays the necessary bones of such lives. His emerging plot of espionage, as the runaway daughter attempts to assist in Poland after all, is clever and intriguing. However, Jewish readers may be uncomfortable with Alexander’s portrayal of a family life that includes items like Shabbos candlesticks, a Seder plate, a silver kiddush cup, describing them as if they were components of an altar. Though the items are part of important rituals, their value might be better described in terms of how each one is connected to an older family member or a transition. Similarly, Stefa’s father Izreal marvels at “inner peace and the spirit of joy,” a modern pair of concepts foreign to an observant Jewish family of the period. Stefa’s mother Perla speaks of family members deserving prayers, which again is more Christian than the Jewish approach to prayer that rises from a covenant and commandments.
Alexander’s strength draws from his active curiosity about events of the war as it unfolded in Poland, and about the struggle for survival under ghetto conditions. His portrait of romance in wartime will satisfy those seeking kind and humane grace notes for a story of courage.
