Another memoir, but a different recipe and a deeper story intertwined through three generations made this a must read. At 5 years old, Ruchel Gamms and her family went into hiding in Nazi occupied Poland, for months hiding in plain sight until the successfully bribed one Polish farmer to hid the family. With the stakes very high for his family also, the farmer took in Ruchel's immediate family; her sister, brother, father and mother and her aunt's family of three young girls and her husband as well.
Eventually, three of her uncles joined them in the attic. The punishment for any harboring of Jewish in Poland was death. For two years, six children and seven adults were confined to an attic above a farmhouse. Ruchel watched her younger brother die and her mother die shortly thereafter, and the trauma of that time followed her throughout her life. After two years, they were freed from the attic and went to their home to find the belongings destroyed but the home inhabitable. Isaac tried to get the family back on their feet but a faction of Nazis made it impossible for the family to make themselves at home in Poland ever again without fearing death. From Poland, they went to Austria where Isaac remarried and then settled in Italy where Ruchel was sent to a sanitorium because she was so ill. For months, she was not expected to recover, but she fought and she became strong enough to leave. Eventually, her family set across to America where they settled in Chicago after a time in New York. In New York, Ruchel's uncle told her and her sister Sera they would need more American names, and they became Rita and Sandra Gamms. Rita's childhood followed her throughout her life causing deep dark bouts with depression, and much anxiety along with feelings of despair and loneliness.
Rita married her husband soon after high school and at 23 had her first child when they were settled in Los Angeles. Leslie was an outgoing, enthusiastic child who had inherited her mom's anxiety and a deep devotion to making sure her mother was happy. Something Leslie's own daughter inherited as well.

It feels off to say I enjoyed this memoir because of the content, but I really felt it was a very compelling story and it flowed off the pages well. The layout of the book was interesting as well. Part I was Rita's story in her words, Part II belonged to Leslie, and Part III detailed the next generation and featured an essay from Michaela written at twelve explaining the similar anxieties handed down from generation to generation. Part I was matter of fact and initially, I felt like it was too factual and not emotional enough but by the end I was glad that Rita's emotions were not laden on the pages. They were described and it was evident that she was very aware of the traumas emotionally and physically and the extra emotional issues that were added because of these instances, but the readers were able to feel the emotions of their own without taking on any anger, hurt, sadness that rightfully belong to Rita. One thing handed down from Rita to each of the women in the book is her intelligence and resilience. Someone mentioned this book as a companion to Anne Frank's diary, as the alternative, a kind of what might have happened had Anne mercifully survived her ordeal and I could not agree more. A very moving story all in all.