Although sold as fiction, I believe that The Postcard is very much autobiographical and historical, the story of the fates of Berest’s relatives and her own search for an identity.
The search begins with a postcard, one that arrived years before but that Anne’s mother Lélia shows her much later. It is an old postcard containing only the names of Anne’s grandmother’s parents, sister, and brother. All of them died in Auschwitz. The postcard is addressed by another hand to Lélia’s mother Myriam, but at Lélia’s address, where Myriam did not live. It is a mystery. Is it a threat? A reminder?
Myriam has never spoken about their family’s past and now she is dead, so both Lélia and Anne have grown up knowing very little about their family, Ephraïm and Emma Rabinovitch and their children, Noémie and Jacques. Since receiving the postcard, though, Lélia has built up an archive of documents about the history of the family up to when they were deported by the French government. The first part of the novel covers this history.
The further sections of the novel are about Anne’s attempts to discover who sent the postcard and what happened to Myriam. Why was she the only one missed, and what did she do during the war? And finally, how has her family’s experience affected Anne’s own life?
This is a deeply engaging story and an important one, I think. Although the Holocaust is long past, its effects are still reverberating.
whatmeread 
The Postcard is one of the better WWII novels I have read (All the Light We Cannot See remains my favorite though). The autobiographical element added a depth of meaning that I often feel is missing in historical fiction; it made the search through history much more urgent.
I think it was very good, too. I liked it better than All the Light We Cannot See, in fact.
Is there a WWII novel you would consider your favorite of the genre?
Well, it’s not really a genre. It’s a time period within the historical novel genre, and WWII isn’t really a period I’m that interested in, so I haven’t paid attention. I’ve read a lot of books set then, but I think more because they’re so common right now. I’m trying to think. I read a trilogy by Roy Jacobsen last year that is very good. The first one is The Unseen, and it’s set before the war, but the second one is during and the third is right after. They have the same main character. And also Julie Orringer has two really good books set during WW II; one is The Flight Portfolio and the other is The Invisible Bridge. The Flight Portfolio is about a real man who helped artists and intellectuals escape the Nazis, and The Invisible Bridge is based on her grandparents’ experiences during the war.
I have read (and greatly enjoyed) The Invisible Bridge, but I’m not familiar with the other titles you mentioned. I’ll definitely check them out. Thank you for the suggestions!
You’re welcome!
I bought this book yesterday completely blowing away my instructions to self to read what you’ve got and stop buying. It sounds really engaging and it’s on top of the every growing pile. Good review thanks.
You’re welcome! I hope you enjoy it.
Such an arresting cover image despite its simplicity. I wonder if its a family picture or a posed model.
I think it is a family photo. There is at least one photo of her family in the book that I recall, although now I’m not sure if it is of Noemie or not.