The Book of Lost Names

Eva Abrams’s flight lands in Berlin, and suddenly her youth returns to her. She thinks of young Frania Kor, a child from Madame Travère’s home, and wonders through her tears if Frania or any of the other children ever found their families again. “Hitler is long dead” (273), Eva thinks, but she cannot overcome the initial fear of the evil that once lived there. She steps into a waiting cab at the airport and asks to be taken to the library from the newspaper, the one housing the Book of Lost Names.

Eva leaves the taxi and steps into a flood of memories, comforted by the books that tower over her once she enters the building. The receptionist and Eva manage to converse in French, and Eva asks to see Otto Kühn. When the receptionist asks for the nature of her visit, Eva replies “I’m here...for the Book of Lost Names” (276).

As the war continues and Germany suffers numerous losses, the Nazis begin taking their aggressions out on the French citizens. Food and fuel are in short supply, and the members of the resistance give up what little food they have to the Jewish children awaiting their trip across the border.