Shadows of Berlin

Summary

A captivating novel of a Berlin girl on the run from the guilt of her past and the boy from Brooklyn who loves her

1955 in New York City: the city of instant coffee, bagels at Katz’s Deli, and ultramodern TVs. But in a certain walk-up in Chelsea, the past is as close as the present. Rashka Morgenstern, now Rachel Perlman, came to Manhattan with her uncle Fritz in a wave of displaced Jews who had managed to survive the horrors of war. She had hoped to find freedom from pain, in New York and in the arms of her new American husband, Aaron.

But this child of Berlin cannot outrun her guilt simply by assuming the role of American housewife, not until she can shake off the ghosts of her past. And when Uncle Fritz discovers the most shocking portrait her mother had ever painted, sitting in a dreary midtown pawnshop, Rachel’s memories begin to terrorize her, forcing her to face the choices she made to stay alive—choices that might be her undoing.

From the cafés of war-torn Germany to the frantic drumbeat of 1950s Manhattan, Shadows of Berlin dramatically explores survival, guilt, redemption, and the ways in which we attempt to love and forgive across impossible divides.