Audiobook12 hours
Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind
Written by Sarah Wildman
Narrated by Tavia Gilbert
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
()
About this audiobook
Years after her grandfather's death, journalist Sarah Wildman stumbled upon a cache of his letters in a file labeled "Correspondence: Patients A-G." What she found inside weren't dry medical histories; instead what was written opened a path into the destroyed world that was her family's prewar Vienna. One woman's letters stood out: those from Valy-Valerie Scheftel, her grandfather's lover who remained behind when he fled Europe six months after the Nazis annexed Austria.
Valy's name wasn't unknown to Wildman-she had once asked her grandmother about a dark-haired young woman whose images she found in an old photo album. "She was your grandfather's true love," her grandmother said at the time and refused to answer any other questions. But with the help of the letters, Wildman started to piece together Valy's story. They revealed a woman desperate to escape and clinging to the memory of a love that defined her years of freedom.
In the course of discovering Valy's ultimate fate, Wildman was forced to reexamine the story of her grandfather's triumphant escape and how this history fit within her own life. In the process, she rescues a life seemingly lost to history.
Valy's name wasn't unknown to Wildman-she had once asked her grandmother about a dark-haired young woman whose images she found in an old photo album. "She was your grandfather's true love," her grandmother said at the time and refused to answer any other questions. But with the help of the letters, Wildman started to piece together Valy's story. They revealed a woman desperate to escape and clinging to the memory of a love that defined her years of freedom.
In the course of discovering Valy's ultimate fate, Wildman was forced to reexamine the story of her grandfather's triumphant escape and how this history fit within her own life. In the process, she rescues a life seemingly lost to history.
Related to Paper Love
Related audiobooks
One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Astrid and Veronika Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Priscilla: The Hidden Life of an Englishwoman in Wartime France Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Risk of Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Barcelona Dreaming: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ladysitting: My Year with Nana at the End of Her Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother's Disappearance as a Child Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Long Way from Home Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter: Growing Up with a Gay Dad Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sanctuary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLike Family: Growing Up in Other People's Houses, a Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Eva and Eve: A Search for My Mother's Lost Childhood and What a War Left Behind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5More News Tomorrow: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ethan Frome Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSing, Memory: The Remarkable Story of the Man Who Saved the Music of the Nazi Camps Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove in the Blitz: The Long-Lost Letters of a Brilliant Young Woman to Her Beloved on the Front Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hiding in Plain Sight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grace for Amateurs: Field Notes on a Journey Back to Faith Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEvery Little Scrap and Wonder: A Small-Town Childhood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Giant's House: A Romance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mothercare: On Obligation, Love, Death, and Ambivalence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Salvation City: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mala's Cat: A Memoir of Survival in World War II Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5They May Not Mean To, But They Do: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Wars & Military For You
The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Watchmaker's Daughter: The True Story of World War II Heroine Corrie ten Boom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kill Anything That Moves Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Strategy Masters: The Prince, The Art of War, and The Gallic Wars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Palestine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Korean War: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Diary of Anne Frank Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Five Rings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Rape of Nanking: The History and Legacy of the Notorious Massacre during the Second Sino-Japanese War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Unbroken Bonds of Battle: A Modern Warriors Book of Heroism, Patriotism, and Friendship Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine: From Zionism to Intifadas and the Struggle for Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Saved: A War Reporter's Mission to Make It Home Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When I Come Home Again: 'A page-turning literary gem' THE TIMES, BEST BOOKS OF 2020 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin - Book Summary: How U.S. Navy SEALS Lead And Win Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for Paper Love
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
1 rating1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The author reconstructs years of the life of Valerie Sheftel, a young Jewish woman, trained as a physician in Vienna, as she navigated survival in the Reich’s ever tightening control and oppression of Jewish people, and as she seeks a way out. The author uses Valerie’s letters to the author’s grandfather (and others) as eyewitness accounts of the ever tightening oppression in the Reich, even before those inside knew about concentration camps, but also painstakingly uncovers bits of information hidden in Nazi records and conversations with people around the world whose own stories unexpectedly crossed Valerie’s. The book brings home that each of the 6+ million murdered, and millions more tortured and terrorized, by the Nazis was a human being, with a life story of joy and sorrow, who was loved and treasured by friends and family. You will want to keep reading as this story comes together in unexpected ways.