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By Daniela Gerson

On Sale: Mar 31, 2026
Page Count: 336 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN-13: 9780306834301

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An immigration journalist and her wife trace their family’s intertwined past to unearth a history of how hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews survived Hitler’s Holocaust at the brutal hands of Stalin — a story that sheds light on the enduring power of hope and love.

Daniela Gerson and her wife, Talia Inlender, met at a picnic in Los Angeles, not knowing that 75 years earlier, their grandparents had left homes only blocks away from each other in a small Polish town, and fled east to Ukraine. The Gersons and the Inlenders would go on parallel odysseys of 5,000 miles to survive the Holocaust – one that would, after a deceitful loyalty test from Stalin, put them on cattle cars to a Soviet Gulag, years in limbo in Central Asia, and would end, after a decade on the run, with new lives built on secrets and lies.

For years, Daniela and Talia simply accepted this painful shared history as a sign that they were b’shert, meant to be. Their families’ refugee past fueled their work: Daniela as an immigration journalist; Talia an immigration attorney. But as Daniela uncovered more, she realized that their grandparents shared this escape path in the Soviet Union with most Polish Jews who survived; a group — sometimes collectively called “the Wanderers” – that is almost entirely absent from popular understanding of World War II. And unlike most Holocaust sagas that focus on the exceptionality of the Nazi genocide, theirs was also a universal story of refugees making impossible decisions when forced to seek safety, protect their children, and find new homes. A story that, to the dismay of the world, remains relevant each time a political upheaval wreaks havoc on individual lives.

Part genealogical detective story, part gripping history, part contemporary reporting on war-torn territories, The Wanderers chronicles Daniela’s journey to unearth this past with her wife, and reveal its echoes in still-contested lands from Ukraine to Israel. The Wanderers is a groundbreaking narrative history, and a meditation on how a home left behind and a desperate journey to survive reverberates across borders and through generations.

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Daniela Gerson is an award-winning immigration reporter whose work has appeared in outlets including The New York Times, WNYC, Der Spiegel, and Financial Times. An associate professor of journalism at California State University, Northridge and editor-at-large at Zócalo Public Square, she previously co-founded Migratory Notes, worked as a community engagement editor at the LA Times and as a staff immigration reporter for the New York Sun. Daniela lives in Los Angeles with her two children and wife, an attorney specializing in immigrants’ rights.

"In The Wanderers, Daniela Gerson searches for the truth about how her family survived the Holocaust by fleeing east into the belly of the murderous Soviet Union. After hearing stories and reading old letters from her grandparents, Gerson’s curiosity lured her to Poland, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan to delve into archives, walk in the footsteps of her ancestors, and drift through the shadows of those who did not survive. The Wanderers is a fascinating tale told by a sleuth with the instincts of a bloodhound, uncovering long-lost mysteries that offer warnings for the future."
Alex Storozynski, author of Spies In My Blood: Secrets of a Polish Family’s Fight Against Nazis and Communists
"When Daniela Gerson fell in love, she also fell into an epic detective story. She and her wife share roots from the same Polish village. In The Wanderers you'll accompany her across continents as she pieces together the intertwined histories of two families that survived both the Holocaust and Stalin's gulag. Her quest is a heavy-duty journalistic adventure. The story she tells with novelistic verve is full of deeply-drawn characters and their richly narrated tragedies and triumph. Along the way, you can't help but be drawn in by the almost mystical romance that develops between two women who are friends first, then lovers, then spouses and eventually parents, passing forward a shared inheritance of survival."
Roberto Suro, author of Strangers Among US: Latino Lives in a Changing America and Writing Immigration: Scholars and Journalists in Dialogue

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Daniela Gerson

About the Author

Daniela Gerson is an award-winning immigration reporter whose work has appeared in outlets including The New York Times, WNYC, Der Spiegel, and Financial Times. An associate professor of journalism at California State University, Northridge and editor-at-large at Zócalo Public Square, she previously co-founded Migratory Notes, worked as a community engagement editor at the LA Times and as a staff immigration reporter for the New York Sun. Daniela lives in Los Angeles with her two children and wife, an attorney specializing in immigrants’ rights.

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Daniela Gerson

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