The Wanderers

"[Gerson's] impassioned tale spans decades, continents, languages, and coping mechanisms, and it provides a significant voice to a lesser known experience of Polish Jews. Gerson doesn’t shy away from the hard realities their families faced and the legacy and consequences that remain for current and future generations worldwide."—Booklist, STARRED REVIEW

"Journalist Gerson’s deeply felt debut braids her and her wife’s love story with an investigation into a lesser-known chapter of Jewish displacement during WWII. . . In crisp, unadorned prose, Gerson restores a neglected history; notes its contemporary resonances, as people are uprooted by violence across the globe; and tenderly chronicles the relationship that brought this history to light. It’s a profoundly moving account."—Publishers Weekly

"[R]eads like an action thriller. . . The Wan­der­ers is a book that can’t fail to stir the reader’s con­science, espe­cial­ly today, when nation­al­ism is on the rise and immi­grants are demonized."—Jewish Book Council

"Though etched in local detail, this is really a global tale for our own time. . .Today, when many Americans face questions to their citizenship, this book lets us know that true belonging lies less in the ink of a passport than in the blood of family. A uniquely vivid story of Holocaust wandering, told as a tale of modern self-discovery."—Kirkus Reviews

"In The Wanderers, Daniela Gerson searches for the truth about how her family survived the Holocaust by fleeing east into the belly of the murderous Soviet Union. After hearing stories and reading old letters from her grandparents, Gerson’s curiosity lured her to Poland, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan to delve into archives, walk in the footsteps of her ancestors, and drift through the shadows of those who did not survive. The Wanderers is a fascinating tale told by a sleuth with the instincts of a bloodhound, uncovering long-lost mysteries that offer warnings for the future."—Alex Storozynski, author of Spies In My Blood: Secrets of a Polish Family’s Fight Against Nazis and Communists

"Gerson’s powerful, expert inquiry into her family’s Holocaust experience places the age-old question firmly before us: should we put atrocities of the past behind us, or must we recall and record them? Thankfully she chooses the latter, skillfully illuminating our responsibility to carry forth the stories - at times remarkably intertwined - of those who came before us."
—Georgia Hunter, New York Times bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones

"Daniela Gerson's captivating debut sheds light on a fascinating and forgotten Holocaust story. Gerson masterfully weaves together the personal and the historical, the romantic and the political, the commonplace and the spiritual. Her voice is fresh, direct and wise. The Wanderers taught me not only about WW2 and current events, but about my own family's repressed story."

"Traveling to Poland and Ukraine, Tel Aviv and Tashkent, Daniela pursues the details of their intertwined family stories. She sifts through name changes, blurred documents, and lies told in order to survive. As she pursues these stories of the war of the past, she finds herself entering two wars of the present—in Ukraine, and in Gaza.  Self-reflective, committed to truth-telling, and painfully aware that victimhood does not imply innocence, the author takes the reader on an enthralling journey through multiple hells and layer upon layer of tragedy for more than one people."
—Marci Shore, author of The Ukrainian Night and The Taste of Ashes

"The Wanderers is a family memoir unlike any other, crafted by a writer who is equal parts detective, historian, and dutiful daughter. Epic in scope, it crosses three continents, from twenty-first century Los Angeles, to war-torn Polish shtetls, Ukrainian crossroads, and the windswept villages of Central Asia. This book is an unforgettable testament to the resolve and strength of a family, and a people."
—Héctor Tobar, author of Our Migrant Souls

"When Daniela Gerson fell in love, she also fell into an epic detective story. She and her wife share roots from the same Polish village. In The Wanderers you'll accompany her across continents as she pieces together the intertwined histories of two families that survived both the Holocaust and Stalin's gulag. Her quest is a heavy-duty journalistic adventure. The story she tells with novelistic verve is full of deeply-drawn characters and their richly narrated tragedies and triumph. Along the way, you can't help but be drawn in by the almost mystical romance that develops between two women who are friends first, then lovers, then spouses and eventually parents, passing forward a shared inheritance of survival."—Roberto Suro, author of Strangers Among US: Latino Lives in a Changing America and Writing Immigration: Scholars and Journalists in Dialogue

“The Wanderers is a remarkable book. Daniela Gerson wraps an important part of twentieth century migration into her family’s history in a way that brings the policy to life and honors the horror, courage, sacrifice, and perseverance that her relatives experienced. If literature can still educate and inspire, it is because of books like The Wanderers.”