Letters from Prague : 1939-1941

Raya C Schapiro

ISBN 10: 0897335457 / ISBN 13: 9780897335454

Published by Chicago Review Press Apr 2006, 2006

About this Item

Neuware - Their discovery of a box of letters to America sent from relatives in Prague led two sisters to compile this extraordinary collection. Raya Schapiro and Helga Weinberg found the letters among their mother's effects after her death in 1990. They were written by their grandmother and uncle, trapped in Prague after the Nazi occupation, to the girls' parents who had escaped to the United States in May, 1939, leaving the two girls behind. The 77 letters reprinted here span a period of two years, during which the Nazis drew an evertightening noose of destruction around the Jews of Prague: each letter is followed by notes of explanation and amplification, as well as notes on Nazi laws and official restrictions and the progress of the war. The early letters deal with the difficulties of getting the two small girls out to join their parents in America. After that is accomplished, the grandmother and uncle concentrate on their own prospects for immigration, and they struggle to maintain a normal life while hope slips steadily away. Each letter has a censor's stamp on it; each envelope bears the stillfrightening emblem of the Third Reich. The letters dramatically convey the tension, growing daily, of existence under the Nazis, and their tone becomes increasingly desperate as every avenue of escape reaches a dead end. Reading Letters from Prague is a moving experience, because it makes tangible a time in history so cruel as to be almost surreal. A rich legacy of bygone European Jewish life is maintained in this book, and Schapiro and Weinberg-a psychiatrist and retired teacher respectively-now grandparents themselves, can point to an invaluable record of human suffering and show the world that their voices, and those of their ancestors, cannot be silenced.

Seller Inventory # 9780897335454

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Letters from Prague : 1939-1941
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press Apr 2006
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0897335457
• ISBN 13: 9780897335454
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 203W x 127H x 14D millimeters 203 millimeters width by 127 millimeters height by 14 millimeters depth
• Weight: 277 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Their discovery of a box of letters to America sent from relatives in Prague led two sisters to compile this extraordinary collection. Raya Schapiro and Helga Weinberg found the letters among their mother's effects after her death in 1990. They were written by their grandmother and uncle, trapped in Prague after the Nazi occupation, to the girls' parents who had escaped to the United States in May, 1939, leaving the two girls behind. The 77 letters reprinted here span a period of two years, during which the Nazis drew an evertightening noose of destruction around the Jews of Prague: each letter is followed by notes of explanation and amplification, as well as notes on Nazi laws and official restrictions and the progress of the war. The early letters deal with the difficulties of getting the two small girls out to join their parents in America. After that is accomplished, the grandmother and uncle concentrate on their own prospects for immigration, and they struggle to maintain a normal life while hope slips steadily away. Each letter has a censor's stamp on it; each envelope bears the stillfrightening emblem of the Third Reich. The letters dramatically convey the tension, growing daily, of existence under the Nazis, and their tone becomes increasingly desperate as every avenue of escape reaches a dead end. Reading Letters from Prague is a moving experience, because it makes tangible a time in history so cruel as to be almost surreal. A rich legacy of bygone European Jewish life is maintained in this book, and Schapiro and Weinberg-a psychiatrist and retired teacher respectively-now grandparents themselves, can point to an invaluable record of human suffering and show the world that their voices, and those of their ancestors, cannot be silenced.

Review

"This book turns an abstraction into a palpable terror and pity." -- Chicago Tribune