About the Author
Daniel Mendelsohn is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and also writes for The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, and The New York Times Magazine. He is a winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Excellence in Criticism and is the author of The Elusive Embrace. Mendelsohn holds the Charles Ranlett Flint Chair in Humanities at Bard College. He lives in New York City and Trenton, New Jersey.

Introduction
Humanity's worst can often inspire some of its very best. Daniel Mendelsohn's The Lost is a memoir: the story of the author's quest to discover what really happened to six relatives who disappeared during the Holocaust. With only scattered details to go on, and a clutch of urgent letters that had been written to his grandfather in 1939, Mendelsohn visited 12 countries in his search. He deftly mixes present-day detective work with reflections on the past and the nature of memory itself. Enthralling and beautifully written, the book sees Mendelsohn not only relate the trying, fascinating tale of a family, but also provide a greater understanding of a people.

Discussion Questions

1. How much do you know about your family history? How many generations back does that knowledge go?
2. Are older relatives and the stories they may have shared about their lives part of your memories about growing up? What kind of effect do you think they had on you and your sense of who you are?
3. Daniel Mendelsohn talks in his book about the "hinge generation"—the last generation of people who will have had direct contact with the people who lived in the WWII era and who will be responsible for keeping their stories alive and passing them on to future generations. Discuss ways in which we can ensure that those stories are passed on to future generations.
4. What began as a trip to Bolechow became a journey into the past that took Daniel Mendelsohn all over the world. Were you surprised at the reactions of any of they people he met along the way? Did you expect him to find out as much about his family's fate as he did?
5. Do you think our families' histories play a big part in shaping who we are as Americans?

Copyright © 2007 by Tom Brokaw. All rights reserved.