Plum Trees

In the early 2000s, Consie, an American woman, comes across a letter mailed from Germany in 1945. It suggests that her great-uncle Hermann, who was sent to Auschwitz with his wife and their three daughters, may have gotten away. Determined to learn what actually happened, she begins to investigate.

Most of the relatives who could have answered her questions are gone, so Consie pieces the story together from oral testimonies, historical records, and her own scattered memories.

The narrative follows Hermann, his wife, and their daughters from their household in Czechoslovakia, before the German occupation, to Hungary, where they were seized, and then into the concentration camps. It closes with the liberation of Auschwitz and the end of World War II.

The book is grounded in the author's own family history and looks closely at what the past left behind.