Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind

Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind

One womanâ€™s journey to find the lost love her grandfather left behind when he fled pre-World War II Europe, and an exploration into family identity, myth, and memory.

Years after her grandfatherâ€™s death, journalist Sarah Wildman stumbled upon a cache of his letters in a file labeled â€œCorrespondence: Patients Aâ€“G.â€ What she found inside werenâ€™t dry medical histories; instead what was written opened a path into the destroyed world that was her familyâ€™s prewar Vienna. One womanâ€™s letters stood out: those from Valyâ€”Valerie Scheftel.Â Â Her grandfatherâ€™s lover who had remained behind when he fled Europe six months after the Nazis annexed Austria.

Valyâ€™s name wasnâ€™t unknown to herâ€”Wildman had once asked her grandmother about a dark-haired young woman whose images she found in an old photo album. â€œShe wasÂ your grandfatherâ€™s true love,â€ her grandmother said at the time, and refused any other questions. But now, with the help of the letters, Wildman started to piece together Valyâ€™s story. They revealed a woman desperate to escape andÂ clinging to the memory of a love that defined her years of freedom.

Obsessed with Valyâ€™s story, Wildman began a quest that lasted years and spanned continents. She discovered, to her shock, an entireÂ world of other people searching for the same woman. On in the course ofÂ discoveringÂ Valyâ€™s ultimate fate, she was forced to reexamine the story of her grandfatherâ€™s triumphant escape and how this history fit within her own life and in the process, she rescues a life seemingly lost to history.
Country USA
Manufacturer Riverhead Books
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2014-10-30
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Riverhead Books
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2014-10-30
Format	Kindle eBook

Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind

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