“Her feet had carried her straight to Behaimstrasse 72, to bear witness as the raven-haired Frau Juttner nursed the baby for the first time. Jerusza had seen the baby glowing, even then, a light in the darkness no one knew was coming.”

The first chapter of The Forest of Vanishing Stars has a mystical feel that reinforces the book’s undertones of magical realism. Along with her mismatched eyes and dove-shaped birthmark, the child Inge glows, foreshadowing the light she will bring to Jewish survivors in the darkest days of the war.

“If one listened closely enough, nature always spilled her secrets, which of course were the secrets of God. And now, it was God who had brought Jerusza here, to a fog-cloaked Berlin street corner, where she would be responsible for changing the fate of a child, and perhaps a piece of the world, too.”

These two sentences lay out the themes of Yona’s story. Nature is a manifestation of God, and by obeying that divine impulse, Jerusza makes it possible for this chosen child to fulfill her world-changing destiny.

“Have I not taught you by now that the forest takes care of its own?”

Jerusza and the young Yona have reached the swamp, foreshadowing a time when Yona will lead the group of Jewish survivors as they flee the Germans. Here, Jerusza emphasizes once again that the forest is a refuge and protector.