My Wounded Heart : The Life of Lilli Jahn, 1900-1944 [BARGAIN PRICE] (Hardcover)

A Concise History of the Third Reich (Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism) by Wolfgang Benz $27.30

A Concise History of Nazi Germany by Joseph W. Bendersky $26.95

Holocaust: A History by Deborah Dwork  (6)  $12.89

Moments of Reprieve: A Memoir of Auschwitz (Twentieth Century Classics) by Primo Levi  (4)  $10.16

All But My Life by Gerda Weissmann Klein  (95)  $11.20

› Explore similar items : Books (5)

From Publishers Weekly
By the time the Gestapo arrested Dr. Lilli Jahn in 1943, she had been forced to stop practicing medicine, ostracized by her German neighbors in Immenhausen and divorced by her non-Jewish husband, Ernst, after he'd had a child with a fellow doctor whom he subsequently married. Confined to her home, Lilli found joy in her five children until her deportation. One of the most unusual stories to come out of the Holocaust, Lilli's tale is told largely through letters she wrote, dating from her courtship with Ernst in 1923 through her final 1944 letter from Auschwitz ("I'm well, I'm working at my profession," she writes in the censored message), and from more than 250 letters from her children between 1943 and 1944, when Lilli was incarcerated at a forced labor camp in Breitenau. Its graphic depiction of the fate of Jews in so-called "privileged" mixed marriages and the way national politics affected domestic life make this a valuable addition to the Holocaust canon. The children's letters detail their daily activities. For her part, Lilli had only one goal: "I'm being careful and my one thought is to come back to you fit and well and, I hope, soon." Doerry, Lilli's grandson and editor of the German magazine Der Spiegel, could easily have turned this into a maudlin and melodramatic story. Instead, he has wisely chosen to let the letters speak for themselves, confining himself to inserting details and filling in historical information where necessary. The result is a heartbreaking story that powerfully illustrates love's power to wound—and to heal. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
Lilli Jahn, a German Jewish doctor, was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and sent to the Breitenau Corrective Labor Camp; she died in Auschwitz in 1944. This book is a collection of 300 letters between Lilli, her four daughters, her son, and a few of their friends from the mid-1930s to just before her death. About 250 of the letters were written by Lilli's children to her in 1943 and 1944. Other letters in the collection were written by Lilli to the children, most of them mailed illicitly. The children were compelled to witness their mother's slow and agonizing degradation. They sent her parcels of whatever they managed to scrape together in the way of food and clothes. The letters convey a graphic picture of the stigmatization, isolation, and persecution to which she and her children were gradually subjected. Their correspondence also reveals the human indifference in wartime and bears witness to devotion and the courage of one's convictions. A chilling reminder of Jewish suffering at the hands of the Nazis. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

First Sentence:
On 2 March 1897 the Cologne manufacturer Josef Schluchterer made what was then termed 'a good match': he married his fiancee Paula, a young woman from a very good family. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
loving good wishes, medical councillor, thousand good wishes, labour conscripts, corrective labour camp, dearly beloved children, fondest love, loving hug, fond love, sweet letter Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Aunt Lore, Aunt Rita, Ilse Mouse, Aunt Maria, New Year, Aunt Lotte, Ernst Jahn, Ernst August, Black Forest, Maria Lieberknecht, National Socialist, Gisela Stephan, Lotte Paepcke, Max Mayer, Social Democrats, German Jews, Hanne Barth, Jewish Hostel, Leo Barth, Rita Schmidt, Marburg University, Third Reich, First World War, Hannele Meanwhile, Herr Zschiegner New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Search Inside This Book: