The Golden Daughter: My Mother’s Secret Past as a Ukrainian Slave Worker in Nazi Germany

by Halina St James

Secret wartime letters, a volatile love triangle, an unmarked grave, a noble heritage—a revelatory mother-daughter memoir about discovery, love, and forgiveness.


Sorting through her late mother’s possessions, Halina St. James found a secret stash of letters. They told how her mother, Maria, was abducted as a teenager in Ukraine by Nazis and sent to Germany as a slave.


After the war, Maria found herself pregnant in a displaced persons camp. She married the father, an older man from a noble Polish family. But her life changed when her husband introduced his friend, a young Polish freedom fighter. In Canada, the younger man betrayed his friend and ran off with Maria and Halina.


The letters made Halina realize how little she knew of her mother or her heritage.


The Golden Daughter is the gripping story of a mother and daughter shaped by forces they had no control over.


After uncovering truths hidden for a century, Halina was finally able to make peace with her mother, her father—and herself.

312 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 5, 2025

Reviews

[Marsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unputdownable book about a mother who dies holding onto her secrets, and a daughter determined to uncover the truth. Using her well-honed investigative skills, Halina St. James patches together her mother's entire troubled life, including her time as a slave worker for the Nazis. While the discoveries are devastating, they also help Halina understand her mother's often puzzling lies and hurtful behaviour. An absorbing journey of hope, forgiveness, and finding family. A must read.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the actual story, but it was too dramatically written. The story was summarized over and over again and I found myself skipping over entire pages.

[Barb Spivak-Mann · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Grandfather was a pow, and like Helena’s parents, he told us very little. Helena found her Moms letters after her Mom passed, which took her down a road trying to learn more about her Mom, her birth Dad, as well as her ‘Dad’. She travelled to Germany, and visited camps her Mom was held in as well other places her Mom had been at. Also visited Ukraine and Poland and met family she had never knew existed. She spoke of her childhood and how she struggled, learning more about her Moms struggles helped her to understand her own life and relationship with her parents. A lot more to it than this, but don’t want to spoil it!

[Kristall · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75⭐

The Golden Daughter: My Mother's Secret Past as a Ukrainian Slave Worker in Nazi Germany by Halina St. James was a little misleading and ultimately a disappointing read. The subtitle suggests this book is about the author's mother and will focus on her experiences during the Second World War. However, this is only one third of the book. The last two thirds were the sections that I found really disappointing.

The first section is interesting and enlightening. I learned a little more about what slave labourers in Nazi Germany went through so I appreciate that aspect. The writing is very simple and straightforward though it lacked vivid descriptions and evocative language. As I read I got very confused. Why was the war already over yet there were so many pages left? Well, buckle up because we're going on a ride through some intense family drama.

I felt incredibly uncomfortable reading the latter two thirds of the book. It almost seemed voyeuristic to be privy to the ups and downs and affairs of the author's mother's complicated life. She does not treat her mother kindly in the writing and it definitely comes across as a bitter daughter coming to terms with the lies her mother told. As I read these last two sections I questioned whether or not a lot of this information needed to be included. It all seemed like something better spoken to a therapist than published for public consumption.

It is misleading in other respects than the subtitle because as the author reveals towards the end, a lot of the first part is fabricated from other people's experiences and from her own ideas of what her mother "might" have dealt with during the war. At one point the author describes consulting an astrologer and graphologist to get a grasp on the personalities of the people she never knew, met, or spoke to. I was dumbfounded that this was included in the book because it totally erases any credibility the author had in her writing. How much of the book was completely made up from the viewpoints of quacks that subscribe to unproven pseudoscience?

I did enjoy reading about the author's search for her long lost family and her travels around Europe trying to understand her mother's experiences. However, I don't think it needed to be quite as long as it was though.

I really wanted to like this book; the author was a Canadian journalist and the subject matter in the beginning, the historical aspect, was right up my alley. However the last two sections were not my cup of tea and perhaps should have not been included, at least not in such searing and revealing detail.

[Robert Blair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exhilarating, and revealing

This is a wonderful book written with insights and sorrow at lives where opportunities to live a fuller life were missed. Halina has done a terrific job at revealing and understanding what it was like for slave workers in Nazi Germany of whom, her mother was one. How these hardships caused her mother to withdraw and never allow her daughter to get inside in a sorrowful tale which damaged both of them. Halina writes with an easy flowing style which makes the book easy to read and grasp the details. Her recreating of imagined conversations is very credible and grants a deeper understanding of the characters. Also it is a book which shows great courage on her behalf to unravel her conflicted feelings about her mother, father and step father and come to a final position of understanding and peace. Highly recommended.

[Patti Pokorchak · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in two days as I could not put it down. It's a particularly fascinating read for me as my dad lived through a similar experience, being taken away by the Germans from his Ukrainian village at the age of 15.

What Halina's mother lived through was terrifying. I just wished she had opened up to her daughter when she was safe in Canada. Though having lived through the war and communism, she probably never felt totally safe. But I'm happy Halina kept the letters and unraveled the mystery of her mother's hidden life. Not an easy read but so worthwhile and beautifully written.

[Juliet · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Golden Daughter is a beautifully told memoir exposing under reported history from the Nazi era and recounting a daughter's quest late in life to understand her mother by uncovering secrets she carried to her grave. The author Halina St. James, at first hesitant and then determined in her quest, discovers an untapped well of compassion toward her mother and, ultimately, toward herself.

Also posted this on Amazon and Chapters Indigo and Halina's Facebook page.

[Judith Kovacs · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a truly difficult story to get through - I had to keep taking breaks as it’s so emotional. Anyone with close family that went through any of the atrocities in Europe from WWI through the 1950’s and the relatives, or themselves, ended up in Canada can empathize with the story. However, the writing wasn’t the best and things were repeated in the book, later, so the timeline wasn’t the best.

[Enid Wray]

An important addition to the historical record, and an important exercise in excavating the truth of the author’s family history.

Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for granting me access to an early digital review copy.

[Natalie Kenrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible, compelling story you won’t be able to put down. An amazing memoir of a horrific time told through the accounts of people that lived it.