What I Left for You: Volume 3 (Echoes of the Past) by Liz Tolsma

 

What I Left for You: 

Volume 3 

(Echoes of the Past) 

December 1, 2024

by Liz Tolsma (Author)

A Family's Ties Were Broken in Poland of 1939  

 1939 Helena Kostyszak is an oddity—an educated female ethnic minority lecturing at a university in Krakow at the outbreak of WWII. When the Germans close the university and force Jews into the ghetto, she spirits out a friend's infant daughter and flees to her small village in the southern hills. Helena does everything in her power to protect her family, but it may not be enough. It will take all of her strength and God's intervention for both of them to survive the war and the ethnic cleansing to come. 

  2023 Recently unengaged social worker McKenna Muir is dealt an awful blow when a two-year-old she's been working with is murdered. It's all too much to take, so her friend suggests she dive into her family's past like she's always wanted. Putting distance between herself and her problems might help her heal, so she and her friend head on Sabbatical to Poland. But what McKenna discovers about her family shocks everyone, including one long-lost family member

Also in the Echoes of the Past Series:  What I Would Tell You    What I Promise You

Marilyn's thoughts:   Magnificent historical of two heroines finding the perseverance, endurance, determination and a faith that renewed their lives to keep going midst the storms. Helena historical account of being Lemkos during WWII and McKenna’s present desire to find the history of her grandma’s ancestors after suffering losses kept me reading until the end. Yes, there were plenty of tears with all they endured with one thought “No matter what, God.” The beauty of the hardships changed lives forever but yet there was new beginnings.

 

The research Tolsma included of her personal family heritage brought a fresh look at the past, landscape, buildings and foods that were popular in Poland, but yet newcomers to America kept the recipes alive in families. This is one story that will stay with me for a long time.

 

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Barbour Publisher without any obligation to write a positive review. I have expressed my own thoughts.