Lala's story

Born into a middle-class Jewish family in 1922, Lala Weintraub grew up in Lvov, Poland. Her parents were assimilated Jews, and the family lived in a religiously and ethnically mixed neighborhood. When the Nazis came, Lala - who had blond hair and blue eyes - survived by convincing them she was a Christian. This book tells her remarkable story.

Lala's Story begins with the 1945 liberation of Katowice, the Polish town where she was living. In the days that followed, Lala's mood swung between euphoria and despair. Believing her entire family to be dead, and having lived under an assumed identity for so long, she had no idea who she was or what to do next. Lala recalls preparing for the Nazi arrival by obtaining forged papers and memorizing Catholic prayers and rituals; she relates how, fiercely determined and greatly aided by her Aryan looks, she managed to convince everyone - German soldiers, interrogators, fellow Poles - that she was a Polish Gentile girl named Urszula Krzyanowska. Within a year after Lvov was captured by the German forces, many of Lala's family members were missing and presumed dead; Lala's Story follows Fishman as she moves from town to town in an effort to avoid the same fate, driven by her fear of being discovered. The book ends by bringing her story up to the present day.