Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Wanderers: A Story of Exile, Survival, and Unexpected Love in the Shadow of World War II

The Wanderers: A Story of Exile, Survival, and Unexpected Love in the Shadow of World War II

Gerson, Daniela

Hardcover

Biographies GeneralWorld War II

Publisher Price: $30.00

ISBN10: 0306834308
ISBN13: 9780306834301
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: Mar 31 2026
Pages: 336
Weight: 1.22
Height: 1.14 Width: 6.34 Depth: 9.24
Language: English
Powerful. -- Wall Street Journal

An immigration journalist and her wife trace their family's intertwined past to unearth a history of how hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews survived Hitler's Holocaust at the brutal hands of Stalin--a story that sheds light on the enduring power of hope and love.

Daniela Gerson and her wife, Talia Inlender, met at a picnic in Los Angeles, not knowing that 75 years earlier, their grandparents had left homes only blocks away from each other in a small Polish town, and fled east to Ukraine. The Gersons and the Inlenders would go on parallel odysseys of 5,000 miles to survive the Holocaust--journeys that would, after a deceitful loyalty test from Stalin, put them on cattle cars to a Soviet Gulag, trap them for years in limbo in Central Asia, and would end, after a decade on the run, with new lives built on secrets and lies.

For years, Daniela and Talia simply accepted this painful shared history as a sign that they were b'shert, meant to be. Their families' refugee past fueled their work: Daniela as an immigration journalist; Talia an immigration attorney. But as Daniela uncovered more, she realized that their grandparents shared this escape path in the Soviet Union with most Polish Jews who survived; a group--sometimes collectively called the Wanderers--that is almost entirely absent from popular understanding of World War II. And unlike most Holocaust sagas that focus on the exceptionality of the Nazi genocide, theirs was also a universal story of refugees making impossible decisions when forced to seek safety, protect their children, and find new homes.

This is a story that, to the dismay of the world, remains relevant each time a political upheaval wreaks havoc on individual lives. Part genealogical detective story, part gripping history, part contemporary reporting on war-torn territories, The Wanderers chronicles Daniela's journey to unearth this past with her wife, and reveal its echoes in still-contested lands from Ukraine to Israel.

The Wanderers is a groundbreaking narrative history, and a meditation on how a home left behind and a desperate journey to survive reverberates across borders and through generations.

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