The Things We Cannot Say

Although the novel moves chapter to chapter between the story of Alina in Nazi-occupied Poland and the story of her granddaughter Alice Michaels in contemporary Florida, this study guide will separate the stories.

In the Prologue, Alina recalls her hastily arranged wedding in 1942 amid the squalid conditions of a refugee camp in the Russian town of Buzuluk. She and her husband, identified as Tomasz, have survived for more than three years in horrific conditions in their hometown of Trzebinia in Nazi-occupied Poland before escaping to the safety of Buzuluk. She acknowledges that in the darkest moments she never abandoned her love for Tomasz. The wedding, serenaded by a scratch choir of camp children (war orphans) singing a traditional Catholic hymn, signaled for Alina that the war was at last over.

The novel turns back to summer 1938. Everyone in the rural town of Trzebinia in southern Poland knows that Alina Dziak, who grew up on her family farm outside of town, is destined to marry Tomasz Slaski, the handsome son of the town’s respected doctor. Their childhood friendship has blossomed into a magical love that is about to be tested. Tomasz is to depart to begin medical studies in distant Warsaw.