An Emotional, Yet Gratifying, Story of Perseverance, Love and Sacrifice
My Name Is Hannah is a beautiful but heart-wrenching story of a Ukrainian Jewish family that was forced into hiding to avoid being victims of the Holocaust.
A fiction novel, Tara Lynn Masih’s saga is based on an all-too-real family and true events of the German invasion into Kwasova, a small village that once existed in southeastern Ukraine.
The story is told through the eyes of Hannah, the oldest of three children in the Slivka family. As Hannah walks us through her daily life as a young, innocent teenager, it’s easy to visualize the fields, the cows and sheep, and the children playing. You can almost smell the fresh country air.
But there is also fear and dread in the air that grows as the Germans march forward and, town by town, strip the Jewish community first of their livelihood, then of their dignity, and then, eventually, of their very lives, as thousands are sent off to concentration camps or are killed where they stand. When the Germans arrive in Kwasova, the Slivka family is forced to take drastic measures to save themselves. This book left me wanting more. But don’t fret. Unlike the Diary of Anne Frank, this family has a happy ending.
Award Winner
My Real Name is Hanna by Tara Lynn Masih was named a Top 100 Notable Indie Book in the Shelf Unbound 2019 Indie Best Awards.
View this and other award winners in our January 2020 Award Issue.
Continue Reading…
Article originally Published in the February/March 2020 Issue “Short Stories”