By the moon and the stars: A heart-rending, wartime story of a young Czech exile's lonely struggle to grasp the meaning of life and love

by Éva Heyman

131 pages, Paperback

First published August 6, 1992

About the author

Eva Heyman was born in Nagyvarad, Hungary (now Oradea, Romania) in 1933. Her parents divorced when she was very young and she went to live with her grandparents, while maintaining occasional contact with both her mother and father. Her mother remarried a famous Hungarian author, Béla Zsolt. Eva began her diary in February 1944 and ended it in May. She was deported to Auschwitz a short time later, and was gassed in October 1944.

Eva's mother and stepfather survived the war. Her mother found and published Eva's diary, then committed suicide.

Reviews

[Wendy Lovatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Always interesting and informative to read real life accounts of historical happenings. As this was based on a diary, it did get a little repetitive at times as the author was feeling very desperate about her family, which spanned the entirety of the time she was writing (and understandably so).