Maria was eight months old in 1942 when a childless couple found her, wrapped in a blanket, at the side of a road near Krosno, Poland. A note pinned to the blanket stated only her first name and her date of birth. The couple picked up Maria and raised her, but she grew up longing for identity and connection. Who was she, and what had happened to her family?

Years later, Maria’s story came to the attention of Stanley Diamond. Diamond was the founder of Jewish Records Indexing-Poland, one of the largest databases of Jewish vital records and a crucial tool in researching the stories of the victims and survivors of the Holocaust.

In this engrossing story, Amy Fish shows how Diamond and an intrepid band of international volunteers compared photographs with genealogical records and smuggled DNA tests to provide Maria with family ties that she thought were lost to her forever. A tale of unexpected coincidences, astonishing revelations, and more than a little luck, One in Six Million is an amazing story of lost — and found — identity.

Amy Fish is the author of two previous books of non-fiction, The Art of Complaining Effectively and I Wanted Fries with That: How to Ask for What You Want and Get What You Need. Her writing has also appeared in the Globe and Mail, Montreal Gazette, and Canadian Traveller. She has taught writing workshops for the Canadian Creative Non-Fiction Collective, the University of King’s College, and the Quebec Writers’ Federation. She lives in Montréal where she works as the Ombudsperson at Concordia University.

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