The Orphan’s Tale (Questions)

1. Noa and Astrid’s rivalry changes into a close friendship despite significant differences in age and circumstances. How did this evolution happen? What do you think it was that drew them together? Have you ever found yourself in such a close but unlikely friendship? 2. Even in WWII-torn Europe, the circus was still allowed to perform. Did this surprise you? How did the setting impact your reading of the novel? What deeper meaning do you think there is behind the circus burning down in the end? Who did you initially think was the narrator in the opening chapter? How did the opening chapter shape your reading experience? 3. With whom did you identify more closely, Astrid or Noa? Why? What were Noa’s and Astrid’s greatest strengths and their greatest flaws? Were there choices you wish Astrid and/or Noa had made differently throughout the book? 4. Noa is disowned by her family and in turn has her child ripped from her arms. Astrid leaves her family for a husband who abandons her. How do you think Astrid and Noa were each defined by their pasts? What role does the notion of family play throughout the story? What are some of the other themes in the book? 5. What do you think drew Astrid and Peter together so powerfully? Noa and Luc? How do these two relationships differ from one another? Do you think either of these relationships could have lasted a lifetime under different circumstances? 6. What do you think of Peter’s decision to continue with his mocking act toward the Reich? How do you think the story would have differed if Peter had refrained from doing the act? 7. How did you feel about the ending? Were you surprised? Satisfied? 8. What will you remember the most about The Orphan’s Tale? https://www.bookmovement.com/bookDetailView/50107/The-Orphan%27s-Tale-By-Pam-Jenoff

The Orphan’s Tale (About the Author)

Updated:Aug. 30, 2012 Pam Jenoff PERSONAL INFORMATION: Born c. 1971 in Silver Spring, MD; married; children: three. Education: George Washington University, B.A.; Cambridge University, M.A.; University of Pennsylvania, J.D. Memberships: Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America. Addresses: Home: Haddonfield, NJ. Agent: Scott Hoffman, Folio Literary Management, 505 8th Ave., Ste. 603, New York, NY 10018. Office: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Rutgers School of Law--Camden, 217 N. 5th St., Camden, NJ 08102. E-mail: [email protected]. CAREER: Attorney, diplomat, and author. Has worked as a special assistant to the Secretary of the U.S. Army; U.S. State Department, U.S. Consulate, Krakow, Poland, diplomat and government official, 1994-98; former attorney in private practice, Philadelphia, PA; Rutgers School of Law, Camden, NJ, professor of law. Former member of board, Jewish Community Relations Council of Southern New Jersey; fellow, Salzburg Seminar. AWARDS: U.S. Commission for the Preservations of America's Heritage Abroad honors; Quill Award nomination, best romance category, for The Kommandant's Girl. NOVELS Sidelights The seeds of author Pam Jenoff's interest in fiction writing were planted during her childhood, but it was through her adult career as a government official and diplomat that she found the motivation and material for her first novel. After college, Jenoff was appointed as a special assistant to the Secretary of the U.S.

Army. In this position, she had the "unique opportunity to witness and participate in operations at the most senior levels of government," according to her home page. Next, Jenoff was assigned to diplomatic duties at the U.S. Consulate in Krakow, Poland. There, she "developed her expertise in Polish-Jewish relations and the Holocaust," while working on issues such as the "preservation of Auschwitz and the restitution of Jewish property in Poland." "I was profoundly affected by my experiences in Poland, and by the many close relationships I developed with both Jewish and Gentile Poles," Jenoff also commented on the M.J. Rose Web log. "For several years after my return to the United States, I wanted to write a novel that reflected these experiences," Jenoff continued on her home page. Guided by an image of a "young woman nervously guiding a child across Krakow's market square during the Nazi occupation," Jenoff's interest in writing the novel was cemented by a chance meeting with an elderly couple during a train ride from Washington, DC, to Philadelphia. They were both Holocaust survivors who were thoroughly familiar with the Polish resistance during the war. Their story, coupled with a sense of reassessment of priorities following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks spurred Jenoff to enroll in a writing class. This led to her debut novel, The Kommandant's Girl, which became an international best seller. Since then, Jenoff has continued her career as a novelist and has also become a lawyer and law professor.

https://link-gale-com.ezproxy.lapl.org/apps/doc/H1000176604/LitRC?u=lapl&sid=LitRC&xid=fad225e4. Accessed 9 Apr. 2020.

The Orphan’s Tale (Reviews)

Publishers Weekly Bestselling author Jenoff (The Kommandant’s Girl) depicts two disparate women thrown together by destiny, each hiding a secret from the Nazi regime. Noa’s Dutch family kicks her out of the house after an affair with a Nazi soldier leaves her pregnant. She gives up the child, but in her new life as a train-station washerwoman, she finds a boxcar full of Jewish infants. She rescues one and flees, nearly freezing to death in a distant forest where she is rescued by a member of the famous German Circus Neuhoff; Noa claims the baby is her brother. Astrid Sorrell (born Ingrid Klemt) is forced to separate from her German officer husband when the Reich forces all Jewish intermarriages to be dissolved. A former star in her now-depleted Jewish family’s circus, she, too, finds refuge with the rival Circus Neuhoff, where her Jewish identity will be hidden, and now her boss forces her to teach the pretty Noa the art of the trapeze. Will Noa be able to perform and keep her baby safe? Will anyone discover Astrid’s true identity? Despite their different backgrounds, they find comfort and trust in each other’s friendship. Against the backdrop of circus life during the war, the author captures the very real terrors faced by both women as they navigate their working and personal relationships and their complicated love lives while striving for normalcy and keeping their secrets safe. (Feb.) Book Companion A New York Times bestseller! A powerful novel of friendship set in a traveling circus during World War II, The Orphan's Tale introduces two extraordinary women and their harrowing stories of sacrifice and survival. Sixteen-year-old Noa has been cast out in disgrace after becoming pregnant by a Nazi soldier and being forced to give up her baby. She lives above a small rail station, which she cleans in order to earn her keep When Noa discovers a boxcar containing dozens of … Jewish infants bound for a concentration camp, she is reminded of the child that

was taken from her. And in a moment that will change the course of her life, she snatches one of the babies and flees into the snowy night. Library Journal Noa becomes pregnant by a soldier and is compelled to give up both baby and home. Living above a railway station she cleans to pay her bills, she discovers a boxcar full of Jewish infants bound for a concentration camp and steals one, joining a traveling circus to cover her tracks. Over-the-top imagination.

https://www.bookcompanion.com/the_orphans_tale_links2.html https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-7783-1981-8 https://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/fiction/10917-orphans-tale-jenoff?start=2

The Orphan’s Tale (Enhancements)

The setting of the German circus, where Noa, the female protagonist is sheltered from harm during World War II and is trained to be an aerialist. Following is a brief historical look at the German circus and its heroes during that era. “The Ringmaster who helped Jewish acrobats escape the Nazis” (The Daily Beast, 4/20/18) The circus is a family business and the Althoff dynasty traces its roots back to the ​ ​ late-seventeenth century, not long after the circus as we know it first arrived in ​ ​ Germany. Dominik Althoff founded his own show in 1905 and married a haute ecole rider, Adele Mark, with whom he had eight children. Adolf, the baby of the family, was born in 1913 on the grounds of his parents’ circus as carnival music played outside. By the time he was 17 he was working as his parents’ publicity ​ ​ director and as a talented horse and elephant trainer. At 23, he was running his own show in partnership with his sister, a production whose signature attraction was a tiger riding on horseback. He married a member of another well-known circus family, Maria von der Gathen, and began a thirty year run as ringmaster of the Circus Adolf Althoff, later recalled as “one of the most technically proficient circuses in the world and what was one of Germany’s most popular shows” By the outbreak of World War II, he was employing 90 artists and crew. ​ ​ As a group, circus artists were not considered potentially subversive to the Nazis the way artists and writers were, and indeed German circuses were often sent on international propaganda tours by . But troupes were harshly purged of Jewish performers, a community that had a community that had been a significant part of the German circus for generations. Traveling circuses had particularly been a Jewish art form, and several of the great companies were forced into bankruptcy or sold at cut-rate prices. And while many leaders of the circus community, such as Carl Krone and Paula Busch, joined the Nazi Party, the Althoffs refused. Adolf’s brother and sister were known to hide Jews in concealed ​ ​ walls at their own circus. Adolf went even further.

“In a circus you can do a lot and keep it a secret,” Althoff remarked. And for more than five years he, his wife, and family risked their livelihood and their lives to save Jewish circus artists. On one occasion, Althoff for a time sheltered Gerda Blumenfeld—whose family had lost their circus and almost all of whom would perish in the camps—and hired her son Alfred as a director and press agent. Soon after, Irene Danner, an 18-year old member of the Lorch circus family—a legendary Jewish clan—asked Adolf for a job as an acrobat in the circus when his show came to Darmstadt. Expelled from school after Kristallnacht for being a Jew and forced to abandon training as a ballerina, Irene was a natural acrobat and Adolf found a role for her riding elephants. She soon fell in love with the clown Peter Bento The situation became even more dangerous after the Jews of … Darmstadt were deported in 1942 and 1943 The Althoffs immediately agreed to … protect Irene’s mother Alice and Irene’s twelve-year-old sister Gerda. “There was no question that we would let them stay,” Althoff recalled. “I couldn’t simply ​ ​ permit them to fall into the hands of the murderers. This would have made me a murderer.” They were soon joined by their father Hans, an Aryan sent home from the front with orders to divorce his Jewish wife, who also went underground. Althoff took responsibility for hiding them all from certain death, allowing them to work under assumed names and without proper papers. Contacts at various tour stops would provide advance notice of Gestapo inspections. A subtle knock on the door and a whisper to “go fishing” was the signal for the Bentos and their relatives to hide in their wagon or run into the forest. Then Althoff would turn on the charm, offering free tickets, stories about performing in Kiev with bears, and flowing cognac. “They admired our circus because it was so neat. When they wanted to check the premises, I usually was able to divert them,” Adolf recalled. “Our hospitality became famous." The risk of denunciation was constant, given the secret was poorly kept among the troupe After the war, the Althoffs and … Bentos continued as stars of the circus, and Adolf did not retire until well into his seventies, on one occasion continuing a performance after suffering a tiger bite. Decades after her rescue, Irene Donner said, “It was only natural for the Althoffs to help us. They didn’t want our gratitude. Without their help my family would not have survived the Holocaust in safety.” Adolf Althoff did not view himself as a hero. When recognized for his deeds by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, he stated, “We circus people see no difference between races or religions.” As we celebrate the circus today and the multicultural mélange at its heart, we should also celebrate

the tolerance this unique art breeds, the connections it creates, and the heroism it inspired at the bleakest time. Another important circus from , Germany was the Sarrasani Circus founded in 1901. They withstood many challenges during the Nazis rise to power and World War II. The son of the founder, Junior (Hans Stoch-Sarrasani) and his wife, Trude, ran the circus during the turbulent era of the 1930’s -1940’s. Their circus performed during the in . Trude was briefly imprisoned for “Anti-German behavior” in 1944. The circus employed troupes from many countries: China, Japan, Java, Morocco, Ethiopia, the Sioux from North America and Gauchos from . The latter country was also a home for the circus in the 1930’s. The Sarrasani Circus had a permanent building in Dresden, which was partially destroyed in the World War II bombing of Dresden in 1945. Trude escaped from the site during the bombing.

https://en.wkikipedia.org/wiki/Sarrasani#History https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-ringmaster-who-helped-jewish-acrobats-escape-the-nazis