I Have My Mother’s Eyes is a sur­vival nar­ra­tive, as one crit­ic has writ­ten, of a moth­er who is fight­ing to find safe­ty dur­ing the Holo­caust, and a daugh­ter who, in fight­ing for her own life from can­cer, asso­ciates more and more with her mother’s struggle.

When the Ger­mans enter Poland in 1939, the author’s (then) teenage moth­er and her well-off fam­i­ly escape first to East­ern Poland, and then to Rus­sia and Lithua­nia. There, with the help of the Japan­ese con­sul in Lithua­nia, who pro­vides them with visas, they cross Rus­sia and arrive at a boat that brings them to Cana­da. The strug­gles, inge­nu­ity, and chutz­pah required to obtain visas to any coun­try that would accept them is a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry in itself. When Bluman’s hus­band left her and when she strug­gled with can­cer, it was her mother’s coura­geous exam­ple that sus­tained her. They resem­bled each oth­er not only in their star­tling blue eyes but also in their courage and abil­i­ty to adjust to what­ev­er cir­cum­stances life threw at them.