Praise for
The Woman with the Blue Star
“Pam Jenoff’s meticulously researched story...is a timely and compelling
account of the lengths we go to for the family we are born with,
and the family we make for ourselves. It will leave you gasping at the end.”
—Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Two Ways and A Spark of Light
“Heartfelt and beautifully written... This emotional novel is filled with
twists, turns, and displays of bravery and love that you will never forget.
You will not be able to put [it] down.”
—Lisa Scottoline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eternal
“The Woman with the Blue Star is a profoundly moving
novel from a writer who is, deservedly, both admired and
beloved for the truth, power, and beauty of her work.”
—Jennifer Robson, New York Times bestselling author of The Gown
“A beautifully written and extraordinarily well-researched story. Pam Jenoff
captures the trials and the triumphs of the human spirit.... This book is a must-read.”
—Kelly Rimmer, New York Times bestselling author of The Things We Cannot Say
“[A] haunting, harrowing tale of love, loss and survival.... Readers who loved
The Nightingale and The Alice Network will happily follow The Woman with the Blue Star.”
—Mary Kay Andrews, New York Times bestselling author
of Hello, Summer and Sunset Beach
“Once again, Pam Jenoff displays her mastery.... Book clubs will assuredly devour
this compulsively readable novel that both wrenches and warms the heart.”
—Kristina McMorris, New York Times bestselling author of Sold on a Monday
Also by Pam Jenoff
The Kommandant’s Girl
The Diplomat’s Wife
The Ambassador’s Daughter
The Winter Guest
The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach
The Orphan’s Tale
The Lost Girls of Paris
Pam Jenoff is the author of several books of historical fiction, including the New York Times bestsellers The Lost Girls of Paris and The Orphan’s Tale. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University and a master’s degree in history from Cambridge, and she received her Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives with her husband and three children near Philadelphia, where, in addition to writing, she teaches law school.
www.PamJenoff.com
Twitter: @PamJenoff
Facebook: /PamJenoffAuthor
THE WOMAN WITH THE BLUE STAR
Pam Jenoff
To my shtetl...I’ll be seeing you.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Kraków, Poland
June 2016
The woman I see before me is not the one I expected at all.
Ten minutes earlier, I stood before the mirror in my hotel room, brushing some lint from the cuff of my pale blue blouse, adjusting a pearl earring. Distaste rose inside me. I had become the poster child for a woman in her early seventies—graying hair cut short and practical, pantsuit hugging my sturdy frame more snugly than it would have a year ago.
I patted the bouquet of fresh flowers on the nightstand, bright red blooms wrapped in crisp brown paper. Then I walked to the window. Hotel Wentzl, a converted sixteenth-century mansion, sat on the southwest corner of the Rynek, Kraków’s immense town square. I chose the location deliberately, made sure my room had just the right view. The square, with its concave southern corner giving it rather the appearance of a sieve, bustled with activity. Tourists thronged between the churches and the souvenir stalls of the Sukiennice, the massive, oblong cloth hall that bisected the square. Friends gathered at the outdoor cafés for an after-work drink on a warm June evening, while commuters hurried home with their parcels, eyes cast toward the clouds darkening over Wawel Castle to the south.
I had been to Kraków twice before, once right after communism fell and then again ten years later when I started my search in earnest. I was immediately won over by the hidden gem of a city. Though eclipsed by the tourist magnets of Prague and Berlin, Kraków’s Old Town, with its unscarred cathedrals and stone-carved houses restored to the original, was one of the most elegant in all of Europe.
The city changed so much each time I came, everything brighter and newer—“better” in the eyes of the locals, who had gone through many years of hardship and stalled progress. The once-gray houses had been painted vibrant yellows and blues, turning the ancient streets into a movie-set version of themselves. The locals were a study in contradictions, too: fashionably dressed young people talked on their cell phones as they walked, heedless of the mountain villagers selling wool sweaters and sheep’s cheese from tarps laid on the ground, and a scarf-clad babcia who sat on the pavement, begging for coins. Under a store window touting Wi-Fi and internet plans, pigeons pecked at the hard cobblestones of the market square as they had for centuries. Beneath all of the modernity and polish, the baroque architecture of the Old Town shone defiantly through, a history that would not be denied.
But it was not history that brought me here—or at least not that history.
As the trumpeter in the Mariacki church tower began to play the Hejnał, signaling the top of the hour, I studied the northwest corner of the square, waiting for the woman to appear at five as she had every day. I did not see her and I wondered if she might not come today, in which case my trip halfway around the world would have been in vain. The first day, I wanted to make sure she was the right person. The second, I meant to speak with her but lost my nerve. Tomorrow I would fly home to America. This was my last chance.
Finally, she appeared from around the corner of a pharmacy, umbrella tucked smartly under one arm. She made her way across the square with surprising speed for a woman who was about ninety. She was not stooped; her back was straight and tall. Her white hair was pulled into a loose knot
