9. The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel

listened on Libby

376 pgs. (11:21)

2021
Adult Historical Fiction - WWII
Finished 2/22/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.25
My rating: 4.25
Setting: 1920s - 1944 Poland, woods

My comments: Set in a huge forest in Poland, mostly in the 1940s during World War II, a young girl is kidnapped by an old lady and raised in the forest learning survival skills, languages, Jewish prayers and customs until she is 21 and on her own.  She meets, helps, and guides a small group of Jewish refugees fleeing from their ghetto when everyone except them has been murdered by the Germans.  This tells the story of this girl and the people she saves and helps and loves.  It's an incredible survival story with a little bit of suspended belief here and there.  Good storytelling.

Goodreads synopsis:  The New York Times bestselling author of the The Book of Lost Names returns with an evocative coming-of-age World War II story about a young woman who uses her knowledge of the wilderness to help Jewish refugees escape the Nazis—until a secret from her past threatens everything.

After being stolen from her wealthy German parents and raised in the unforgiving wilderness of eastern Europe, a young woman finds herself alone in 1941 after her kidnapper dies. Her solitary existence is interrupted, however, when she happens upon a group of Jews fleeing the Nazi terror. Stunned to learn what’s happening in the outside world, she vows to teach the group all she can about surviving in the forest—and in turn, they teach her some surprising lessons about opening her heart after years of isolation. But when she is betrayed and escapes into a German-occupied village, her past and present come together in a shocking collision that could change everything.

Inspired by incredible true stories of survival against staggering odds, and suffused with the journey-from-the-wilderness elements that made Where the Crawdads Sing a worldwide phenomenon, The Forest of Vanishing Stars is a heart-wrenching and suspenseful novel.

MOVIE - Ida

PG-13 (1:20 - though it seemed longer)

Limited release 5/2/2014

Viewed Sunday, 6/15/2014 in Harrisburg at the Midtown Theater

RT Critic:  93 Audience:  79

Cag:  2/It was okay

Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski

Music Box Films

in Polish, with English subtitles

My comments:  The story was a good one, but could have been told in about 45 minutes. It was depressing.  And dark...literally.  Black & white and dark.  And although it ended exactly as I knew it would, it really pissed me off...probably because of my own personal religious bent, especially about the Catholic church.  However, the thing that bothered me most were the long silences.  L...o....n....g silences.  Way too long......

RT Summary:  From acclaimed director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) comes IDA, a moving and intimate drama about a young novitiate nun in 1960s Poland who, on the verge of taking her vows, discovers a dark family secret dating from the terrible years of the Nazi occupation. 18-year old Anna (stunning newcomer Agata Trzebuchowska), a sheltered orphan raised in a convent, is preparing to become a nun when the Mother Superior insists she first visit her sole living relative. Naïve, innocent Anna soon finds herself in the presence of her aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza), a worldly and cynical Communist Party insider, who shocks her with the declaration that her real name is Ida and her Jewish parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation. This revelation triggers a heart-wrenching journey into the countryside, to the family house and into the secrets of the repressed past, evoking the haunting legacy of the Holocaust and the realities of postwar Communism. In this beautifully directed film, Pawlikowski returns to his native Poland for the first time in his career to confront some of the more contentious issues in the history of his birthplace. Powerfully written and eloquently shot, IDA is a masterly evocation of a time, a dilemma, and a defining historical moment; IDA is also personal, intimate, and human. The weight of history is everywhere, but the scale falls within the scope of a young woman learning about the secrets of her own past. This intersection of the personal with momentous historic events makes for what is surely one of the most powerful and affecting films of the year.