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The Night Sky, a Journey from Dachau to Denver and Back Reviewed By David W. Menefee of Bookpleasures.com
http://www.bookpleasures.com/websitepublisher/articles/4581/1/The-Night-Sky-a-Journey-from-Dachau-to-Denver-and-Back-Reviewed-By-David-W-Menefee-of-Bookpleasurescom/Page1.html
David W. Menefee

Reviewer David W. Menefee: David is a Pulitzer nominated American author, ghost writer, screenwriter, book editor, and film historian. David’s career began as a writer and marketing representative for the Dallas Times Herald and the Dallas Morning News. His books have appeared under various imprints and in a variety of categories, such as biography, travel, historical fiction, mysteries, and romance. Two books by David were named among the 2011 Top 10 Silent Film Books of the Year: Wally: The True Wallace Reid Story, and The Rise and Fall of Lou-Tellegen. His most recent releases include Sweet Memories and the 1950s romance trilogy, Can't Help Falling in Love, Come Away to Paradise, and Catch a Falling Star (with co-author Carol Dunitz). David lives in Dallas, Texas, USA.





 
By David W. Menefee
Published on February 5, 2012
 

Author: Maria Sutton

Publisher: Johnson Books (October 1, 2011)

ISBN-10: 1555664466: ISBN-13: 978-1555664466



Follow Here To Purchase The Night Sky: A Journey From Dachau to Denver and Back

Author: Maria Sutton

Publisher: Johnson Books (October 1, 2011)

ISBN-10: 1555664466: ISBN-13: 978-1555664466

 

The Night Sky, a Journey from Dachau to Denver and Back stands as a monument to one woman’s consuming quest for truth. Imagine spending a lifetime wondering if your father was dead or alive. Maria Sutton was born in a displaced persons camp in war-torn Germany, and she immigrated to the United States in 1951 with her sister, mother, and stepfather, but a mystery concerning the whereabouts of her real father haunted her throughout her life. Maria’s memoir takes the reader on a gripping journey across space and two eras, as she lights a fuse in a never-ending chase, and untiringly digs beneath the sands of time to unearth the face of the man to whom she owed her life.   

During the 1960s and 1970s, searching for a lost relative involved tedious inquiry using mail and telephone, and Maria’s dogged investigations led to frustrating dead ends. Persevering into the 1980s, she discovered a few clues, and she began to realize that a deliberate shroud of obscurity veiled the truth about her father. Her hunt spiraled downward into a nearly hopeless pursuit until one day, her effort to resolve the decades-long mystery pulled back the mask from the facts, and the crushing, painful secret she discovered left her shattered beyond any realization she had dreamed.

The Night Sky, a Journey from Dachau to Denver and Back by Maria Sutton draws the reader into an extraordinary and unflinchingly honest memoir. Jozef Kurek, a victim of Nazi aggression during World War Two, survived the Dachau death camp, but then he disappeared into a maze of post-war confusion, leaving behind Julia, his wife, and two little girls. He also left behind his legacy, an unwavering determination to survive and overcome all obstacles, which Maria brought on her lifelong quest to reunite with her father. Believing that nothing is impossible, Maria continued her search through the 1990s using newfound avenues with the miracle of the Internet. For Maria, time was not the Great Healer. As events unfolded in her pursuit, old emotional wounds festered and a galvanizing spirit entrenched itself in her endeavor.    

The birth of Brad, her son, increased her desire to find Jozef, knowing that one day he would ask about his maternal ancestors. Since Maria had no family history to give him, unraveling the mysterious facts about her long-lost father became a Holy Grail that consumed much of her available time in-between her studies to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting and Finance from the University of Colorado. Undaunted, and clutching a picture her mother had of Jozef with a group of thirty people in front of the Altenstadt Displaced Persons camp administrative building, she made her life’s mission to search the world for Jozef. Throughout her efforts, her mother seemed strangely detached from memories of him, until a chance encounter spurred Maria to unearth memories long forgotten. What she learned destroyed her naive imaginings of her noble father, but conjured a newborn love she had never known.   

Maria’s story of quiet courage and love has been superbly retraced in her memoir, which anyone interested in World War Two, the Holocaust, or in reuniting with a lost loved one will find inspiring. Each of the book’s 224 pages is written in a clear and easy to read style with perfect grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, and spelling. The book has been handsomely mounted and illustrated with 78 thought-provoking photographs and illustrations that capture the dark horrors of war-torn Europe and many of the clues Maria discovered on twisting paper trail that ultimately led to the discovery of a heartbreaking family secret.

The night sky holds many secrets. Those revealed by Maria Sutton in The Night Sky, a Journey from Dachau to Denver and Back will keep you on the edge of your seat, as this gripping page-turner takes you on a roller coaster ride through a world gone mad and into a new age where love and forgiveness unite.

 

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