Max Sussman deftly takes us step by step through the stages of his grandmother's personal Holocaust. In riveting detail, we learn from her postwar letters about her deportation, her suffering in Theresienstadt, her escape with 1,200 others in a "trade" agreed to by Himmler, and her immediate postwar struggles to learn the fate of family and friends and to emigrate to England. Despite Dora’s miraculous rescue, her correspondence mourns profound losses of friends and family, but also expresses the hope to be reunited with her children "in the sunshine of your love". - Marion Kaplan, New York University
Max Sussman has once again provided a deeply meaningful chapter on the personal experience of those whose lives were impacted by the Holocaust. It is a welcome addition to our understanding of this event. - Deborah Lipstadt, Emory University
………a monumental work of application, devotion and dedication…….even the appendices are remarkable creations…. a family chronicle of immense value…. something very special. - Geoffrey D. Paul OBE, former editor of the Jewish Chronicle
A bacteriologist, Max Sussman has turned his microscope on his own family history. The result is a work as admirably researched as it is deeply moving. The contemporary letters and other documents laid out here provide a vivid window into the shattered world of German Jewry reeling under the impact of Nazi barbarism. Sussman tells his story with exemplary clarity, restraint, and humanity. - Bernard Wasserstein |
