The collection brings together letters written by Jewish Holocaust survivors who endured concentration camps, survived in hiding or resisted as partisans. Unlike memoirs written years later, these letters capture the first days and weeks after the Holocaust with remarkable immediacy: the search for loved ones, the confrontation with loss and devastation, but also hope, love and the tentative beginnings of a new life.
An Evening of Readings, Music and Historical Context
The book launch combines literary readings, historical reflection and music. Federal Minister for Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth Karin Prien will open the evening. Actors Iris Berben and Oliver Masucci will read selected letters from the volume. Prof. Dr. Dan Michman, one of the world's leading Holocaust historians and former Head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, will place the letters in their historical context while also offering a personal perspective: one of the letters included in the collection was written by his mother. The evening will be accompanied musically by the award-winning clarinettist Nur Ben Shalom. Tickets are available in advance.
Voices That Still Speak to Us Today
These letters were never intended as historical documents. They were written as signs of life – in the hope that family members, friends or loved ones were still alive and would respond. It is precisely this immediacy that makes them extraordinary historical sources. They offer a rare insight into the experiences of survivors at a moment suspended between liberation and the beginning of rebuilding their lives.
Further information about the event and tickets are available here.