The Girl in the Red Coat

As a child in German-occupied Poland, Roma Ligocka was known for the bright strawberry-red coat she wore against a tide of gathering darkness. Fifty years later, Roma, an artist living in Germany, attended a screening of Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, and instantly knew that “the girl in the red coat”—the only splash of color in the film—was her. Thus began a harrowing journey into the past, as Roma Ligocka sought to reclaim her life and put together the pieces of a shattered childhood.

The result is this remarkable memoir, a fifty-year chronicle of survival and its aftermath. With brutal honesty, Ligocka recollects a childhood spent: the flashing black boots, the sudden executions, her mother weeping, her father vanished, and her eventual, harrowing escape.

Powerful, lyrical, and unique among Holocaust memoirs, The Girl in the Red Coat gives new insight into the personal anguish, and strength, of Holocaust surivors.

"This poignant...tale does honor to all children bewildered by horror
and injustice...."
--Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler’s List

"This is not only a Holocaust memoir but also a story of one woman’s quest for contentment."
--Booklist

“A fascinating work that reads like a novel.”
--Library Journal