The Last Woman of Warsaw
In 1938 Warsaw, often called “the Paris of the East,” two unlikely young women, Fanny Zelshinsky and Zosia Dror, are brought together. Fanny, from a family of Jewish elites, yearns to be recognized as an artist while her mother yearns to see her married into another family of Jewish elites. Zosia, a “shtetl girl,” left her religious family after a trauma to climb the ladder within her Labor Zionist youth movement in a quest to earn a coveted visa to Eretz Israel. The only person who can help them both is the legendary artist Wanda Petrovsky, who happens to be Fanny’s mentor as well as a leader in Zosia’s movement. When Wanda goes missing, Fanny and Zosia must find some common ground between them in order to find Wanda, save her (and themselves). All while the world around them teeters towards war.
By setting her story in pre-war Warsaw, most remembered for its infamous ghetto, Batalion presents a novel unique in the canon of Holocaust fiction. She draws from her meticulously researched nonfiction book, The Light of Days, to create her characters and brings Warsaw’s Jewish community, with all its complexity and contradictions, to life beautifully. The varying Jewish movements—”socialists, religious, anti-religious, Zionists, anti-Zionists, and every permutation thereof”—provide detail of the community’s complexity. As Fanny and Zosia each strive for their goals, build their friendship, fall in love and out, are bruised and nearly broken, the approaching storm grows palpable. They fight for their lives even before they literally have to fight for their lives. The characters feel real. Their aspirations, fears, and confusion are believable and understandable. This is an excellent reminder that not all Holocaust survivors were victims. Highly recommended.
