Last Letters From The Shoah

by Zwi Bachrach (Editor), Toby Weissman (Editor), Batsheva Pomerantz (Translator)

The last letters written by those about to be killed during the Holocaust. These are actual letters found over the last 50+ years, and collected by Yad Vashem, the major Holocaust Museum in Israel.

Genres: Holocaust, Nonfiction

400 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2004

Reviews

[Meaghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of over 100 last letters sent by victims of the Holocaust to their loved ones. A few of them had no idea what lay ahead. Some of them only felt a strong sense of impending doom. Many of them knew exactly what was going to happen to them. There is a wide selection of letters here, from many European countries and from people of all walks of life. The only things they all had in common is that all of them were Jewish and all of them were murdered because of it. The introduction is long but provides context and does a good job pointing out common themes in the letters and sorting them into rough categories.

The letters were translated from their many languages into Hebrew, then into English for the American edition of this book. Therein lies my only significant issue with the book: the transliteration is all wrong; many proper nouns are spelled in ways I have never seen before. Elchanan Elkes (chairman of the Kovno Ghetto) is rendered as "Elchanan Alex." Bialystok (a major city in Poland) is spelled "Bialistok." Belzec (an extermination camp) is called "Belzice." And I could name many more similar misspellings.If I did not already know how these words were spelled, and tried to look them up, I probably wouldn't get very far.

But spelling/transliteration issues aside, this book is a gripping and absolutely heart-wrenching read. I think it's an essential text for any decent-sized Holocaust library. I donated my copy to my local library.