Prague Fraud
For years, I felt like a “Prague Fraud.” After all, Diamonds in Auschwitz reads in part as a love letter to Prague—a city whose beauty, history, and resilience inspired so much of the novel—yet I had never actually been there. Thanks to my incredible book club friends, that finally changed. Walking the streets that inspired Hanna, Samual, and Rachael, crossing Charles Bridge, and visiting the sites woven into the story brought the novel to life in a way I never expected. More than a year after publication, Prague reminded me why I fell in love with this story in the first place—and confirmed that some literary journeys are worth taking twice.
The Living, Breathing Streets of Prague
I knew nothing of the city, nothing of its people or its experience during World War II. But as the story unfolded itself to me, starting backwards in Auschwitz, reversing in time to Terezin, the origin became obvious to me. It’s more than a place. It’s a living, breathing part of the story.