A review by fleeno
The Postcard by Anne Berest

5.0

In January 2003, a mysterious postcard arrives at Anne’s mother Leila's house. The card, bearing a touristy photograph of the Opéra Garnier, is inscribed with the names of Anne’s great-grandparents and her great-aunt and -uncle, Ephraïm, Emma, Noémie and Jacques, all of whom were murdered at Auschwitz. The names are written in ballpoint pen in wobbly letters, on a card that contains no other words, no signature and no return address. The family speculates who could have sent the card, is it a threat or is something trying to reach out. Could the sending of the card be an act of harassment, fueled by resurgent antisemitism in an increasingly xenophobic Europe? Or is it more personal? Many years later after her daughter encounters antisemetic comments at school, Anne becomes fixated on the Postcard and her Jewish identity - an identity she knows little about. This fixation takes her on a journey of discovery about her family, the Rabinovitches, who travelled from Russia to Latvia, to Palestine, to France, and ultimately to Auschwitz, her grandmother Myriam the only survivor. Myriam was fortunate to marry a rich, non Jewish man, whose status initially spared her from being arrested and later whose money helped hide her. During the war Myriam worked with resistance and after she searched in vain for her family. What happened in the war shaped Myriam and she carried the scars for life, effecting her daughter and granddaughter, though Anne is determined to end the intergenerational trauma with herself. The tale of the Rabinovitche family could be one of any Jewish family at that time, forced from pillar to post, trying to make the best of their lives whilst the world crumbled around them. Know what happened it is easy to see how their choices led them closer to death and Anne asks her mother a number of times why didn't they run, why didn't they leave, why didn't they see the warnings, and most importantly, why didn't everyone around them defend their Jewish neighbours? But as Leila points out, we never assume the worst will happen, they never could have predicted their government's would turn against them, and people care primarily for themselves - she ponders how many groups there are in the world today who they know little about and therefore *care* little about. At one point Leila recounts her mother's efforts to have her families death certificates printed correctly, and the Leila's efforts to reclaim the items stolen from the family during the war. Not for the monetary value she is quick to say, but to make a point. To force rhe government to admit they sanctioned the murders of her family and stole from them. 
 This is a powerful novel, not just a story of the Holocaust but also the story of how families were impacted for generations, how nations recovered, and the silence from communities and governments after the war, a silence which continues. When Anne and Leila travel to the town the family lived before the war few people will talk, they are treated with suspicion. Even those who didn't know the family don't want to revisit the period. This is an amazing and complex multi-generational family story, with a nice little mystery about who sent the postcard and why.