Journal

Berr, H?l?ne; translated, introduction and an essay by David Bellos; afterword by Mariette Job

ISBN 10: 1847245749 / ISBN 13: 9781847245748

Published by MacLehose, 2008

Torn/worn dj. Good hardcover with some shelfwear; may have previous owner's name inside. Standard-sized. Seller Inventory # mon0000194407

Synopsis:

From April 1942 to March 1944, Helene Berr, a recent graduate of the Sorbonne, kept a journal that is both an intensely moving, intimate, harrowing, appalling document and a text of astonishing literary maturity. With her colleagues, she plays the violin and she seeks refuge from the everyday in what she calls the "selfish magic" of English literature and poetry. But this is Paris under the occupation and her family is Jewish. Eventually, there comes the time when all Jews are required to wear a yellow star. She tries to remain calm and rational, keeping to what routine she can: studying, reading, enjoying the beauty of Paris. Yet always there is fear for the future, and eventually, in March 1944, Helene and her family are arrested, taken to Drancy Transit Camp and soon sent to Auschwitz. She went - as is later discovered - on the death march to Bergen-Belsen and there she died in 1945, only weeks before the liberation of the camp. The last words in the journal she had left behind in Paris were "Horror, Horror, Horror ", a hideous and poignant echo of her English studies from The Heart of Darkness. Helene Berr's story is almost too painful to read, foreshadowing horror as it does amidst an enviable appetite for life, for beauty, for literature, for all that lasts.

About the Author: Helene Berr was a student of English Literature at the Sorbonne in Paris. She was deported to Auschwitz in 1944 with her mother and father, and she died in Bergen-Belsen in April 1945, just a few weeks before the liberation of the camp.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Journal
Publisher: MacLehose
Publication Date: 2008
Binding: hardcover
Condition: Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included