The Journal of Hélène Berr
Book description
Not since The Diary of Anne Frank has there been such a book as this: The joyful but ultimately heartbreaking journal of a young Jewish woman in occupied Paris, now being published for the first time, 63 years after her death in a Nazi concentration camp.
On April 7, 1942,…
Why read it?
3 authors picked The Journal of Hélène Berr as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I can’t understand why this book isn’t better known. It is an actual diary that survived by chance. It was written by a young woman of twenty-one from a wealthy Jewish family long-established in France and not thinking of themselves as anything but French. I found it gripping and harrowing, all the more so because when the Nazis conquer France and start to impose restrictions on Jews, Hélène cannot grasp what is happening or what lies ahead. She has had a happy, secure life, but now these hideous indignities are being imposed on her.
When she is forced to wear…
From Charles' list on the Holocaust without exploiting it.
This is the diary of a 21-year-old Jewish woman living in Paris during the German Occupation. A student at the Sorbonne, we follow her as she writes a first-hand account of the ever-increasing hardships and terrors her and her family face. She writes candidly about her experiences, her thoughts and beliefs as she and her family go about their daily routines, while living in constant fear of being arrested. It is a touching, personal testimony about Paris during World War II. She was arrested on the one night her family decided to sleep in their own home. Tragically, she died…
From Ruth's list on living with the enemy.
Hélène Berr was the French Anne Frank: a university student during the German Occupation, she kept a journal of her experience, which her family kept private until 2008, when it became a publishing sensation. The journal covers the period from 1942, when Jews were forced to wear the yellow star, until her arrest in 1944. Gifted with a literary sensibility, Hélène observes the world around her as the walls began to close in, but still manages to grasp moments of love and joy amid the suffering. A precious record of day-to-day life in Occupied France, the journal also provides that…
From Maurice's list on Jews in modern France.
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