The World That We Knew

Research the genre of magical realism. Assess how it works (or does not work) in a work of historical fiction. In this novel, do the supernatural elements detract from the account of the Holocaust’s horrors?

The novel’s paperback edition has an interview with Alice Hoffman in which she cites mother superior (Sister Marie) as the character that moved her the most. Write a character study of this figure (Chapter 18) as a heroic presence determined to do right in a world of evil.

In the book’s title, who is the “we” and what is the “world”? Does the title express regret? Nostalgia? Or does it imply that the work is a commentary on the Nazi era that defined a generation of Jewish faithful?