Displaced Persons by Ghita Schwarz

She looked at her father's wet face, skin hanging from his jawbones. He had stopped crying, he was still, but he did not bother to wipe his cheeks.

Title: Displaced Persons
Author: Ghita Schwarz
ISBN: 978-0061881909
Publisher: William Morrow/2010
Pages: 340

Displaced Person is about survivors from the holocaust. It is all about overcoming sorrow with endurance and perseverance, and finally rebirth. Pavel, Fela, and Chaim Polish Jews, survivors and ending up in refugee camps and now known as displaced persons. Three people from three different social structures yet united by a common factor, that is surviving the concentration camps. They have nothing but their ingenuity. They escape to US but the past does not go away. They have new families yet the underlying tragedy does not leave them.

The displaced persons, even after finding new countries, new jobs, new families, can never find the inner peace. Their emotional turmoil is a part of them. 

No holocaust book is an easy read. Same here with Displaced Persons. A person escapes the concentration camps but he still does not feel liberated in the refugee camps. Maybe it is the guilt of surviving, maybe something else but the conflict is very much evident. Surviving is not just about staying alive. It is about emotional healing too, which does not happen.

The cover is stark. The novel is stark. And it hits hard. I strongly recommend this novel for everyone of us. Because we must not forget the Holocaust. EVER.