Monday, April 04, 2016

But You Did Not Come Back - Marceline Loridan-Ivens

How moved I was by this little book.  Maceline writes her memoir as a love letter to her beloved father, who with her was transported from their home in France to Auschwitz/Birkenhau when she was just fifteen years old.  There she was able to see her father twice, and one of the times when passing each other to reach out and embrace him, and him pass her an onion and a tomato.  Then upon finding a smuggled gold coin she used it to get a message from her father, a letter that tells her how much he loves her and that she will survive - but he knows that he will not return.

After the horrors of the camp, the rest of the letter describes to her father that how his loss still echoed over the years and still hurt her deeply and she felt him in everything she did and how after fighting to survive the camps, when she came home she struggled to carry on.

Haunting, sad and hopeful at the same time, this book moved me deeply. 5/5

1 comment:

John Bellen said...

I don't think I could read a book like that. It's just too sad.