ABOUT THE BOOK:

Hanna Levy-Hass, a Yugoslavian Jew, emerged a defiant survivor of the Holocaust. Her observations, recorded in her own incomparable voice, shed new light on the lived experience of Nazi internment. Levy-Hass stands alone as the only resistance fighter to report on her own experience inside the camps, and she does so with unflinching clarity in dealing with the political and social divisions inside Bergen-Belsen.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Born in Sarajevo in 1913, Hanna Levy-Hass became involved in the clandestine Communist movement while studying in Belgrade in the 1930s. There, she was instilled with a passion for freedom and equality, which would guide her work and her perspective throughout the rest of her life. She was taken from Montenegro by the Nazis to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1944. Her diary has been published in many languages.

Amira Hass, the daughter of Hanna Levy-Hass, is an Israeli journalist who is best known for her columns in Ha'aretz. She is the only Israeli journalist living and writing from with Occupied Territories. She is also the author of Drinking the Sea at Gaza and the recipient of many awards for her writing. Here she offers a substantial introduction to her mother's work that addresses the meaning of the Holocaust for Israelis and Palestinians today.


PRAISE:

“A compelling document of historic importance which shows, with remarkable composure, that ethical thought about what it means to be human can be sustained in the most inhuman conditions. Hanna Levy-Hass teaches us how a politics of compassion and justice can rise out of the camps as the strongest answer to the horrors of the twentieth century."

– Jacqueline Rose, Queen Mary University of London; author, The Question of Zion

“There are many testimonies of the Nazi concentration and extermination camps, but very few have the quality and the strength of this diary from Bergen-Belsen by Hanna Levy-Hass. A Jew and a member of the Resistance, Levy-Hass belongs to the group of detainees thatÑas Primo Levi emphasized in The Drown and the SavedÑhad the resources to preserve their humanity against the planned annihilation by the Nazi machine. You will find no resignation in these pages written at Bergen-Belsen in 1944-45 and describing the Nazi hell to which Hanna was able to escape by miracle. One regrets that, after this poignant text, Levy-Hass did not write anything else, especially a full autobiography. But Hanna was and remained a fighter all her life. This volume features also and introduction and a long afterword by Levy-HassÕ daughter, Amira. Amira Hass is internationally appreciated for her writings against the Israeli oppression of Palestine. Here she sketches a beautiful portrait of the exceptional woman that was her mother: cosmopolitan, cultivated, and politically involved. Levy-Hass was first in the Yugoslavian Resistance, then in the Israeli communist movement, and finally she became a feminist activist. The history of the Holocaust is often reduced to a simple conflict between the persecutors and their victims, but it was a much more complex process. It was also the history of the struggle against the barbarism of Twentieth century: and that is the reason why this diary is so important to us."

– Enzo Traverso, author, The Origins of Nazi Violence

“Bergen-Belsen represents the final stage of the Holocaust. At the end of the war, forced laborers too weak to work, Jews from neutral countries, and survivors of death marches from Auschwitz and other camps were dumped together under impossible conditions. After the gas chambers in the death camps were closed down, mass murder continued at Bergen-Belsen through other means. In March 1945, the final month before liberation, nearly 20,000 prisoners died there. Levy-Hass described this form of genocide in her diary: Òthe slow, vile, calculated destruction by hunger, violence, terror, and deliberately sustained epidemicsÓ. Her rare description of the final months of the Holocaust is marked by political consciousness, moral understanding, and perceptive observation. Levy-Hass has much to tell us of death and survival."

– Steve Hochstadt, Illinois College, author, Sources of the Holocaust



RIGHTS INFORMATION:

Language/Territory	Publisher
German/worldwide	Beck
Spanish/worldwide	Círculo de Lectores, S.A.

Please contact subagents for the following languages and territories:

Language/Territory	Subagent
English outside North America	David Grossman Literary Agency
German	Paul & Peter Fritz AG Literatur Agentur
Greek	Read n' Right Agency
Hebrew	The Deborah Harris Agency
Japanese	The English Agency (Japan) Ltd
Korean	Best Literary & Rights Agency
Portuguese	RIFF Agency
Russia/Baltics/Eastern Europe	Prava I Prevodi
Scandinavia	Loud Literary Agency
Spanish in Latin America	International Editors' Co., S.A.
Spanish in Spain	International Editors' Co., S.A.
Turkish	Anatolialit Agency