The Girl They Left Behind: A Novel

by Roxanne Veletzos Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

Overview

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

A sweeping family saga and love story that offers a vivid and unique portrayal of life in war-torn 1941 Bucharest and life behind the Iron Curtain during the Soviet Union occupation-perfect for fans of Lilac Girls and Sarah's Key.

On a freezing night in January 1941, a little Jewish girl is found on the steps of an apartment building in Bucharest. With Romania recently allied with the Nazis, the Jewish population is in grave danger, undergoing increasingly violent persecution. The girl is placed in an orphanage and eventually adopted by a wealthy childless couple who name her Natalia. As she assimilates into her new life, she all but forgets the parents who were forced to leave her behind. They are even further from her mind when Romania falls under Soviet occupation.

Yet, as Natalia comes of age in a bleak and hopeless world, traces of her identity pierce the surface of her everyday life, leading gradually to a discovery that will change her destiny. She has a secret crush on Victor, an intense young man who as an impoverished student befriended her family long ago. Years later, when Natalia is in her early twenties and working at a warehouse packing fruit, she and Victor, now an important official in the Communist regime, cross paths again. This time they are fatefully drawn into a passionate affair despite the obstacles swirling around them and Victor's dark secrets.

When Natalia is suddenly offered a one-time chance at freedom, Victor is determined to help her escape, even if it means losing her. Natalia must make an agonizing decision: remain in Bucharest with her beloved adoptive parents and the man she has come to love, or seize the chance to finally live life on her own terms, and to confront the painful enigma of her past.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

10/08/2018
Inspired by the story of her grandparents, debut author Veletzos’s excellent novel centers on the devastation of Romania by Germany during WWII, and the country’s subsequent struggles under Soviet rule. During a pogrom in 1941 Bucharest, a young Jewish couple flees their home. Fearing their capture, they leave their three-year-old daughter behind in an apartment building, hoping that someone will take her in and care for her. Their daughter, Natalia, is brought to an orphanage and is later adopted by Anton and Despina Goza, an affluent childless couple. Despite the bombings and the food shortages, Anton, Despina, and Natalia survive the war with their family intact. When the Soviets invade Romania, the government takes over every aspect of their lives, including Anton’s store, and the Gozas are forced out of their home and must live in communal housing. Through all of their trials, Anton maintains his friendship with Victor, a younger man who once lived above his shop and is now a powerful government official. Natalia, no longer the impressionable girl Victor once knew, is now a beautiful, spirited young woman, and Natalia and Victor’s passionate romance becomes complicated by his allegiance to the Communist Party. Veletzos expertly weaves historical detail into a rich story about the endurance of the human spirit in the face of adversity. (Oct.)

From the Publisher

A fresh, original debut, twining personal family drama together with the lesser-known history of World War II Romania. Even readers saturated with Second World War dramas will be enthralled by this moving tale of two ferociously-devoted mothers, the daughter they share, and the sacrifices they are willing to make for a new future. Gripping, tragic, yet filled with passion and hope—I couldn't put it down!”

—Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network

"Love in all its forms – parental, filial and romantic – renders each character's life through a prism of deeply felt humanity in The Girl They Left Behind as unforgettable men and women face devastating choices during WWII and its aftermath. The political is personal, and Roxanne Veletzos shows us how lives shatter when ideology devolves into chaos and brutality behind the Iron Curtain. This is an important book for these times."

—Laurie Lico Albanese, author of Stolen Beauty

“Based on the life of Roxanne Veletzos’ mother, The Girl They Left Behind is a vividly told, beautifully written, impossible-but-true story. This novel is a moving testament to the power of the human spirit and to those who defied impossible odds to allow the light of humanity to shine in the darkest of times.”

—Helen Bryan, internationally bestselling author of War Brides

"There are stories that must be told because in doing so, they shed light on the irreparable consequences of war in the lives of so many innocents. The Girl They Left Behind, written with flawless historical detail, is a page-turner. In its first pages, it narrates the desperation of a young couple as they leave their four-year-old daughter on the steps of a building. The tale of that girl's destiny, like those of thousands of others, are a necessary testimony for humanity."

— Armando Lucas Correa, author of The German Girl

"Never flinching from the bleak, this sweeping historical romance pieces together hope from the ruins."

—Kirkus Reviews

"Written in the gripping style of Thomas Keneally's Schindler's List and Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, Veletzos's powerful, heartbreaking story, and fluid writing style will transport readers."

— Library Journal

"Veletzos expertly weaves historical detail into a rich story about the endurance of the human spirit in the face of adversity."

— Publishers Weekly

"[The Girl They Left Behind], which Veletzos based on her mother's life, is worth reading for its Romanian setting, and questions regarding Natalia's real parents and whether she will ever be reunited with them add an element of suspense."

— Booklist

"A gripping story of endurance; of a childhood lived under a state of relentless war; and of goodness, courage, sheer will, and the fierce, selfless love that binds parent to child. Highly recommended."— Historical Novel Society

"A beautiful story." —Good Housekeeping

Kirkus Reviews

2018-08-21

In January 1941, as a pogrom descends upon the Jews of Bucharest, Romania, a fleeing Jewish couple must make a horrifying decision: leave their 3-year-old daughter behind or risk all of their lives at the hands of the Iron Guard. Their daughter survives, and her life arcs through some of the most devastating events of Eastern Europe.

Soon adopted into a wealthy Christian family, the child is renamed Natalia and raised by loving parents, Despina and Anton Goza. After four heart-wrenching miscarriages, Despina is eager to shower Natalia with love, drawing the traumatized girl out of her shell. Anton, the owner of several successful stationery stores, dotes on Despina and Natalia, even buying Natalia a piano and engaging a teacher for the talented pupil. Although politically opposed to fascism, the Gozas' wealth shelters them from the atrocities visited daily upon their city's Jewish population. Meanwhile, Natalia's birthparents have been hiding in the attic of Despina's cousin, who helps them escape the country, yet from afar, they try to help their daughter. From the pogroms and bombings to the Soviet occupation and the fall of the Iron Curtain, debut novelist Veletzos deftly threads historical events through Natalia's life story as she survives the fracturing of her biological family, the destruction of her country, the stifling of her education, and cultural isolation from the rest of the world. As Natalia navigates a swiftly changing landscape, her adoptive father befriends Victor, a political revolutionary, who rises in the ranks of the Communist regime. In their times of need, it will be Victor to whom the Gozas turn again and again. But can he be trusted to rescue the fallen bourgeois family? Above all, can he be trusted with Natalia's heart? And will Natalia ever find her parents again?

Never flinching from the bleak, this sweeping historical romance pieces together hope from the ruins.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171120368
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	10/09/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

The Girl They Left Behind
Bucharest

January 1941

THE GIRL SITS ALONE IN impenetrable darkness. Shivering, she wraps her arms around her tiny body and buries her face in the collar of her wool cardigan. Out here on the building steps, she tries to remember exactly what her mother had told her. Did she say how long she’d be gone? It was still light out when she last saw her parents rounding the corner, her mother with her shoulders slumped forward, trembling in her thin dress, her father shuffling down the frozen sidewalk just steps behind her. A chill tears through her as she places her palms on the icy concrete beneath her. The winter wind bites into her flesh, slashing mercilessly at her bare legs, and she wishes she had a blanket or mittens, or at least her bonnet, which somehow she has lost. Still, she’d rather be out here in the frigid cold than inside that dark, musty lobby. The smell of cooked cabbage coming from one of the apartments made her stomach growl with hunger, even though at home she always refused to eat it no matter how much her mother pleaded with her.

Drawing her knees to her chest, she looks up at the building’s three stories and its vast, rounded balconies looming above. Certainly, she’s never seen this building before. She has never seen this street, this vacant, dimly illuminated street on which a single lamppost casts a glint of light over the blackened snow. There isn’t a person in sight. It is as if someone has turned out the lights on this once lively city, forbidding any strolling, greeting, or laughter.

Her parents will be back any minute, she thinks, glancing up the length of the street again. She tries to recall her mother’s soft voice telling her not to be afraid, that if she is a brave girl, all will be well. Still, she knows that she shouldn’t be out at this hour. Just the other day, she overheard her parents talking about the curfew, how the Iron Guard were patrolling the city, arresting anyone still on the streets after sundown. How they’d shot someone in front of their own building, right there for all the neighbors to see. She heard them talk about other things, too, things they didn’t want her to hear, whispering in the room next to hers after she’d long gone to bed. Their words were muffled, indistinguishable, but the desperate edge in their voices made her shudder in her warm bed.

There are noises in the distance now—shouting, shrieking voices intermingled with the rhythmic thumping of boots and windows slamming shut in the night. This has been happening for the last few nights, but this time, the sounds are accompanied by a strange smell, something like burnt coal but sickly sweet, which makes her stomach turn. Waves of nausea rise inside her, and she pulls the edge of her cardigan over her face to get relief from the stench, forcing her thoughts to her home and her bed with the pink satin quilt, the familiar light creeping through the door left ajar between their two bedrooms.

Tears well up in her eyes, and she can no longer fight them. She is ashamed, because she knows she is not brave after all, even though she promised her mother that she would try her hardest. I will be good, Mama. I will be patient, she’d said, but now those words seem as if they were spoken a lifetime ago.

In the crook of her arm, her sobs spring free, knifing through the silence and echoing through courtyards and alleyways. Although she knows she should be quiet, there is no way to contain whatever it is that has come loose inside her. She cries until there is nothing left, until even her jagged sighs have melted away, becoming one with the wind. Lying down on the concrete landing, she curls herself up into a ball and finally lets herself slip into a bottomless chasm.

Suddenly, sturdy arms embrace her, lifting her in the air. She is startled awake, and looking up, she sees the face of a woman she doesn’t know—hair pulled back in a silvery bun, random strands falling about her lined, rounded cheeks. The faint scent of starch and perspiration envelops her as the woman folds her against her chest, so tightly that she cannot break free, even though she tries with all her might, flailing her limbs. Yet there is something tender in the woman’s grip, something comforting, and the girl is too cold and tired and weak, so she buries her face in the woman’s bosom and begins to weep. Opening the entrance door with her elbow, the woman carries her back into the lobby. The girl wants to ask if she knows about her parents, if they are coming to get her soon, but when she opens her mouth, only a long, sharp wail escapes from her lips.

“Shh . . .” whispers the woman in her ear. “I’ve got you. Shh . . . You are all right. You are all right.”

In the transient light of a passing car, the woman’s face shines pale and wide like a moon visible amid passing clouds, her eyes like that, too, sparkling and moist. As if sensing the girl’s gaze, they lower to hers, but an instant later, the light is gone, and they disappear from her again, sliding back into nothingness. Only the woman’s arms remain, soft and solid all the same, and that scent encircling her in waves.

“Such a sweet thing,” she thinks she can hear the woman murmur as if to herself in the returning darkness. “Such a sweet little thing.” There is a cluck of her tongue. “What a pity.”



Twenty years she’s worked as a concierge in this building. Twenty long years, during which she’s gotten to know every family on the block, and so she can practically swear that this little girl does not belong to any of them. No, she is most certainly from a different part of town. Perhaps her parents were visiting someone in the building when the girl slipped away without their realizing. But who would let a child wander off in the middle of Dacia Boulevard? Who would leave a child of three, maybe four, in the middle of gunfire and the curfew and dead bodies lining the streets? In disbelief, in disgust, she shakes her head. She isn’t the most educated woman, but she does know human decency, and she realizes this is an aberration.

Even in her sleep, the poor thing is clutching her hand so tightly that she finds it impossible to move from the stairwell between the lobby and the first floor, where she’s been cradling the girl in her lap. Just when she thinks she can try to lift her, the girl goes rigid, writhing and twisting, and all she can do is still her with her own failing body, folding over hers in a prayer. A prayer that she repeats again and again hours later, when she’s managed at last to bring the child down to her basement room and the wavering light of a winter dawn trickles in through the sliver of glass that is her window.

The girl wakes and sits up on the narrow bed. Her eyes roam unfocused about the tiny space, taking in the old dresser with its peeling lacquer, the kitchen half visible behind the threadbare curtain, the rusted soba in the corner in which a few sputtering flames leap like overgrown moths. Gathering the blanket closer around her, she scoots over to the far corner of the bed, but there is no fear on her face now, only confusion.

“Where’s my mama?” she utters after a silence. Her voice is small, hardly audible. “Is she coming to get me soon?”

The woman’s hands are cold, so cold as she looks down at them, the way they keep rubbing each other as if they have a mind of their own. In the wood-burning stove, the embers flare and pop, and it is only when they’ve turned completely to ash that she raises her eyes.

“No, my sweet girl,” is all she says simply. “No.”

Videos