The World That We Knew

Alice Hoffman has once again created a fascinating novel. I loved so many of her previous novels, including The Dovekeepers, The Museum of Extraordinary Things and The Marriage of Opposites.  Her newest novel called The World That We Knew, is a historical novel that mixes reality and magical mysticism to build a story of love, loss and bravery during a time of hate and fear.

Though Hoffman has included Judaism in some of her other books, this time she has written indirectly about the Holocaust.  She brings the reader into the room with a mother who wants to save her young daughter from the atrocities of war that she knows are coming.  Lea Kohn has narrowly escaped being raped and her mother Hanni realizes that Berlin has become too dangerous to survive.  Hanni does not want to leave her own mother behind so she contrives to send twelve year old Lea away.

To protect Lea she she goes to the Rabbi to create a Golem to accompany Lea as she travels to Paris and hopefully freedom.  The Rabbi's daughter is convinced to create this mystical creature and also wants to send her young sister Marta along to escape. The Golem, Ava is created from mud on the banks of the river Spree.  She is brought to life with the recitation of the secret name of G-d.
She is supposed to have no feelings of her own, just the desire of Lea's mother to love her like her mother would and protect her.  Ava is tall, strong and confident. She learns languages — including birdsong — in minutes and can kill on Lea’s behalf.

As they travel together so many things change along the way.  They relationship develops and changes. The reader more and more accepts the reality of Ava and her developing feelings for life and the world becoming more human as time goes on.

Ava represents all the parents who risk their lives and take extreme measures to save their children and protect them during the Holocaust.  Using this fairy tale like soulless supernatural protector out of Jewish folklore to call attention to the harsh realities of World War II.