Back Before You Wake

Fanni gave her son, Jurek, a cyanide pill. Bieta, a girl born in the Warsaw ghetto, was sedated by her mother with a drug called Luminal, then placed in a wooden crate and smuggled out of the ghetto. The mother also placed a small silver spoon in the crate with the girl's name and date of birth engraved on it. When the ghetto was being liquidated, another mother took cyanide and threw her daughter out of the window because she only had enough poison for one person. The girl survived, as her skirt got caught on a lamppost. Hania was rescued three times by her parents' servant, Zosia. Later, when her well-off relatives wanted to adopt Hania, she was unable to abandon her Polish mother. Back Before You Wake tells the stories of Jewish mothers who made tragic choices, the adoptive mothers, the children who often remained torn between their two identities, two families, between guilt, gratitude and regret. First published in Poland in 2019, Back Before You Wake, based on interviews with the last child survivors, presents a new female perspective on the Second World War.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Holland House
Published: 09/16/2026
ISBN: 9781068316456
Pages: 270
Weight: 1.13lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.73d