Breakaway Books

Authored by Kelly Rimmer; Published 2021; Historical Fiction

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️

Novels set during World War II can be emotionally exhausting, and The Warsaw Orphan is no exception. There is no escaping the horror that the inhabitants of Warsaw lived through, but I found the perspective of the narrators in this novel refreshing and meaningful.

The Warsaw Orphan follows Roman, a young Jewish boy, and Amelia, a Catholic girl, as they try to survive the war in Poland. While this is, of course, a book about war, it’s also a book about grieving and justice and the different ways to pursue it. While other novels I’ve read about this era focus in on the graphic tragedy of it all, this one zeroed in on two ordinary, even fortunate, lives and what it looked like to make it through the nightmare of the war.

I couldn’t help but be encouraged by Amelia’s growing strength throughout the book and her unerring sense of right and wrong. I couldn’t help but be encouraged by the simple kindnesses shown by strangers who became friends and then family. Her story is full of tragedy and somehow still full of hope, and it made it far easier for me to read. Roman’s story is less uplifting—he is devoted to his country, and his single mindedness may grate on the nerves of the reader.

I found the novel to be disturbingly realistic and depressing at times, a somber perspective on what it takes to survive occupation, and to fight. I wanted to shake Roman by the shoulders at times and beg him to think about the future he could have, but a small seed of admiration grew in me for his devotion to see his country set to rights. The fact that a love story could bloom between Roman and Amelia in such a time is miraculous in its own way—but it is no fairy tale, and their differing priorities cause no end of trouble. The philosophies that Amelia and Roman adopt toward resistance and justice are on a collision course, and the question stands: Can their relationship survive it?

While not a lighthearted read, The Warsaw Orphan does bring the reader hope for beauty even in disastrous times.