In 2009, Rachel Cerrotti, a college student aspiring to become a photojournalist, asked her grandmother Hana if she could record her story. Rachel knew that her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor and was the only survivor in her family at the end of the war. Rachel also knew that she survived because of the kindness of strangers. It was no secret. Hana spoke publicly and regularly about her story. But Rachel wanted to document it in a way that only her granddaughter could. So here’s what they did: Hana talked and Rachel wrote.
After Hana died in 2010, Rachel discovered an incredible archive of her life. Scrapbooks and hundreds of photographs from the 1920s survived. There were letters awaiting translation, journals, diaries, deportation and immigration papers, and creative notes from different stages of Hana’s life.
Rachel digitized and organized it all, pulling from the past and placing it in her present. She then began tracing her grandmother’s history, following her through Central Europe, Scandinavia, and the United States. She tracked down descendants of those who helped save her grandmother’s life during the war. Rachel set out in pursuit of her grandmother’s memory to discover how the retelling of family stories becomes history itself.
“We Share One Sky” brings together the stories of two young women, Hana, a refugee who outruns the Nazis at every turn, and Rachel, whose insatiable curiosity to touch the past leads her into the lives of countless strangers. bringing her love and tragic loss. Over the course of twenty years, Hana’s story becomes Rachel’s guide on how to live a life filled with grief.
Discussion Questions.
Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.
Rachel’s life was greatly influenced by her grandmother’s stories and the journey she took as a result. How have memories in your own family been passed down from generation to generation? How have these stories shaped or influenced the way you view the world and the choices you make?
Rachel finds that telling her grandmother’s dark story as well as her own experience of loss makes the light of humanity in these stories brighter. What do you think she means by that? Where do you agree or disagree?
Rachel and her grandmother, though in very different circumstances, have developed deep and momentous relationships across cultures, beliefs, geography, and other differences. What is the value of such relationships for expanding our sense of self and our understanding of the world?
