The Days Before Tomorrow

Hass debuts with a memorable tale of discrimination and hardship faced by a young Jewish man in pre-WWII eastern Poland. In 1933, teenager Wolchi lives with his parents, brother, and sister in a small town in Galicia, where his father works as a bookbinder and printer. Their financial stability is upended when wealthy neighbor Igor Goreki stops the government from using Wolchi’s father as its printer after Igor’s son, Nicholas, is injured while taking part in an antisemitic attack on Wolchi’s family. Determined to fight back against the escalating violence, Wolchi and his sister, Leja, speak out against the town’s antisemitic persecutors. Then, after rising tensions with the Gorekis end in more brutality, they’re forced to flee to Krakow. When the Germans take control of the city, Wolchi and Leja return to their now Russian-ruled town, where more tragedies ensue. As the plot unfolds, Hass documents the gradual erosion of Wolchi’s family’s rights in fine-grained detail, showing how they’re uprooted by the German and Russian occupations alike. Readers will be moved by this story of a never-ending struggle for survival. (Self-published)