Yad Vashem Publications

Edited by Shmuel Almog, David Bankier, Daniel Blatman, Dalia Ofer

Editors: Shmuel Almog, David Bankier, Daniel Blatman, Dalia Ofer

Havi Dreifuss (Ben-Sasson)

"As far as Polish‒Jewish relations are concerned, we need to devote at least a few words to the attitude of Jews toward the Poles.… even in their suffering, the Jews remember with deep emotion and gratefulness all the acts of kindness toward them and the helping hand extended to them by each of those Poles.… But, despite this, the insult and humiliation—which shall never be forgotten—no one wishes to remember."
(Anonymous, Warsaw Ghetto, 1942)

Mirjam Bolle

In early 1943, Mirjam Levie, a young Jewish woman from Amsterdam, began to write letters to her fiance, Leo Bolle, who had immigrated to Eretz Israel a few years earlier. Her letters, which were never sent, were written during the deportations of the Jews from Amsterdam; during her incarceration in Westerbork, the main transit camp for Jewish deportees to the death camps in Poland; and during her imprisonment in Bergen-Belsen. As secretary in the controversial “Jewish Council of Amsterdam”, Mirjam’s letters are the only source remaining to describe events from the viewpoint of one of its members. Mirjam managed to hide the letters she wrote in Amsterdam and Westerbork; and those she wrote in Bergen-Belsen she brought with her when she was released as part of an exchange between Dutch Jews and German POWs, and arrived in Eretz Israel on 10 July 1944. The book presents a series of letters – unique in their historical interest and extremely moving in their human dimension – forming a personal diary of real time.

Patricia Herskovic

Bernd Schmalhausen

Danek Gertner and Jehoschua Gertner

Isidore Karten

Edited by Daniel Fraenkel

Andrew Burian

A sheltered boy from the small town of Buština (then Czechoslovakia, now Ukraine), Andrew had a beautiful carefree childhood. At the age of thirteen, his world was shattered. Andrew’s wartime odyssey began with deportation from his hometown to Mateszalka ghetto in Hungary. From there, Andrew and his family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he survived countless selections and near death experiences. In the freezing winter of 1945, he survived the infamous “death march” evacuation of Auschwitz-Birkenau and was loaded into a cattle car for the long journey to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. Andrew survived another death-march to the Gunskirchen concentration camp from which he was ultimately liberated by the U.S. army. Andrew’s journey took him through Hungary, Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, England and, finally, the USA where he made a new life.

Yisrael Kaplan | Editor: Zeev W. Mankowitz

Uri Chanoch | Judith Chanoch