Silent Letter
One night in January 1943, Rosie’s husband Moritz, a member of the French Resistance, is hauled away by the Gestapo in Marseilles, never to be seen again. Rosie is left alone, highly pregnant, with their two sons, Erwin, age 8, and Jacky, age 6. Unable to locate her husband, who later will die in Auschwitz, Rosie decides to escape from Nazi-occupied France to Switzerland, determined to save her boys and herself. They board a train to Saint-Claude, on the Swiss border, carrying false French documents and, in Rosie’s bag, diamonds embedded in a bar of laundry soap. The journey begins, and all the danger comes into play. The first obstacle is language because Rosie, a native of Hungary, speaks no French. So she pretends to be mute and clever Erwin speaks instead of her. In a world where all the fundamentals of human brotherhood have crumbled, they meet evil people, but also some who are good, who show compassion and help her. After an exhausting trek through the snow, the three sneak across the border into Switzerland, but their difficulties are not over. Rosie is taken to an internment camp and separated from her children. They are reunited only a year later.
This remarkable, moving tale of courage is written years later by Erwin, who is none other than the author. But it is told in Rosie’s voice and from her perspective. With boundless sensitivity and tenderness, Mayer gets right inside his mother’s mind to recount this amazing journey of survival.
- Languages
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English, French (Switzerland), Spanish
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French (Switzerland)
Neuchâtel, Éditions Alphil, 2013 -
English
Oakville, Ontario, Mosaic Press, 2017 -
Spanish
Buenos-Aires, Editorial Leviatán, 2018
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| Title | Silent Letter |
|---|---|
| Writer's Last Name | Mayer |
| Writer's First Name | Yitzchak |
| Genre | Non Fiction |
| Publisher (Hebrew) | Sifriat Maariv |
| No. Pages | 295pp. |
| Book title - Hebrew (phonetic) | Isha Achat |
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“Read this book and tell others about it: it is a quality book. ”
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“In the crowded genre of Second World War memoirs, former Israeli ambassador Yitzchak Mayer has managed to create the unexpected – a lyrical, eloquent account of his family’s escape from Europe that’s written as historical fiction.”
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“The narrative merges facts, dreams, and memories into a suspenseful tale that is beautiful despite the horrors that the family encounter...There are many Holocaust memoirs in print today, but this one stands out because of its presentation.”
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“This is the essence of the Holocaust, and perhaps, as the human condition taken to an extreme, this is life itself, replete with contradictions and painful to the point of horror, or absurdity… This is a book written by a person who loves people, yet who has every reason to hate them. ”