Joshua & Isadora: A True Tale of Loss and Love in the Holocaust

The latest from author and New York Times travel writer Benanav (Men of Salt: Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold) delves into the lives of his grandparents as two Jewish young adults struggling to survive the Holocaust. Following Joshua and Isadora independently, their narratives wend through war-ravaged Europe before fatefully intersecting on a refugee boat headed for Palestine. Their harrowing wartime saga is buttressed by notes from Benanav's own journey, more than half a century later, to revisit the roads and villages where his grandparents suffered and lost their families. Though thorough and inspiring, the narrative loses immediacy and focus due to constantly shifting viewpoints-from Joshua to Isadora to Benanav and back. Still, this is an intriguing record of Holocaust survival written with passion and authority. 8 pages of photos