Mouth of Truth is the unique story of a woman trapped in the vault of family secrets, part of her still a hidden child, some 40 years after the Second World War. Following a crisis, she leaves her home and children in search of the truth about her beloved father, a Jewish policeman in the Warsaw Ghetto. The story reveals how unhealed childhood trauma of a parent can be transmitted from one generation to the next, destroying families and other relationships in its wake.

Lillian Boraks-Nemetz was born in Warsaw, Poland, and is a child survivor of the Holocaust. She escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto and spent the remainder of the war in hiding under a false identity. Boraks-Nemetz graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature. She is an author of an award winning novel The Old Brown Suitcase followed by The Sunflower Diary and the Lenski File, as well as two volumes of poetry Ghost Children and Garden of Steel. She has translated Polish Emigre poetry into English and has also co-compiled the YA anthology of Canadian Holocaust writing, Tapestry of Hope. From 1980-2016, Boraks-Nemetz worked at the University of British Columbia’s Writing Center. She often speaks to students about the consequences of racism, as a member of the Holocaust Center’s Outreach Program. She is a board member of the Janusz Korczak Association of Canada. She lives and works in Vancouver.

Lillian Boraks-Nemetz's profile page

"Mouth of Truth represents an important contribution to the field and engages -- with such eloquence, insight and sensitivity -- with timely questions related to Holocaust memory, the transmission of trauma across generations, and the complexity of roles and responsibilities in a moral universe upended. Mouth of Truth would be a compelling candidate for the reading lists of universities and colleges with courses on Holocaust history and literature, the psychology of genocide." --Nina Krieger | Executive Director, Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre

"Mouth of Truth is a work of great insight and fine delicacy about the human condition, all the while paying particular attention to how men and women and children deal with the trauma of suffering, dislocation, and death." --John Colombo, Author