In Spring 1944 a Jewish family is murdered in a remote Ukrainian village. Who were they? Who were the killers? Three generations later, an Israeli woman and a British man of Ukrainian origins set out to find out how their families were implicated in this crime. They also discover how this untold murder has warped their own lives. Narrated by an unnamed historian, and based on fragments of memories, testimonies, diaries, letters, and confessions, this novel seeks to fill a gap in the historical record of the Holocaust by reimagining those who were murdered and erased from memory and to shed light on the transgenerational effects of trauma. The book is written by Holocaust historian Omer Bartov, author of the acclaimed study Anatomy of a Genocide, winner of the National Jewish Book Award. Bartov was born in Israel and teaches history at Brown University. His mother emigrated from Galicia to Palestine before World War II. Most of the rest of his family were murdered under unknown circumstances in the Holocaust.
Fiction
The Butterfly and the Axe
- From the Publisher
September 1, 2021
Discussion Questions
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