Letters of stone : from Nazi Germany to South Africa / Steven Robins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Robins, Steven L., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Robins, Steven L--Family.

Robins, Steven L.

Jews--South Africa--Biography.

Jews.

Jewish families.

South Africa.

Germany.

Jews--Germany--Biography.

Jewish families--South Africa.

Jewish families--Germany.

Jews--Persecutions--Germany.

Jews--Persecutions.

Antisemitism--Germany.

Antisemitism.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Germany.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945).

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

314 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cape Town : Penguin Books, 2016.

Summary:

As a young boy growing up in Port Elizabeth in the 1960s and 1970s, Steven Robins was haunted by an old postcard-size photograph of three unknown women on a table in the dining room. Only later did he learn that the women were his father's mother and sisters, photographed in Berlin in 1937, before they were killed in the Holocaust. Steven's father, who had fled Nazi Germany before it was too late, never spoke about the fate of his family who remained there. Steven became obsessed with finding out what happened to the women, but had little to go on. In time he stumbled on official facts in museums in Washington DC and Berlin, and later he discovered almost one hundred letters sent to his father and uncle from the family in Berlin during the Nazi terror. The women in the photograph could now tell their story. Letters of Stone tracks Steven's journey of discovery about the lives and fates of the Robinski family, in southern Africa, Berlin, Riga and Auschwitz. It also explores the worldwide rise of eugenics and racial science before the war, which justified the murder of Jews by the Nazis and caused South Africa and other countries to close their doors to Jewish refugees. Most of all, this book is a poignant reconstruction of a family trapped in an increasingly terrifying and deadly Nazi state, and of the immense pressure on Steven's father in faraway South Africa, which forced him to retreat into silence. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 The Photograph 1

2 White Noise in the Suburbs 5

3 Breaking the Silence 15

4 My Father's Flight From Hell 23

5 My Eyes Open 35

6 Stumbling Stones 55

7 In Search of Eugen Robinski 63

8 Letters from Berlin 81

9 Artur's Escape 93

10 The Noose Tightens m

11 The Boomerang 123

12 Edith's World 133

13 Cecilie's Burden 143

14 The Scientific Pathways to Destruction 163

15 The Tragedy of Triage 171

16 Doors Slam Shut 185

17 The Photo Album 199

18 War 207

19 Underground 225

20 Riga 237

21 Auschwitz 245

22 Finding My Father 257

23 Fischer's Footprint, Again 269

24 Optimism and Despair 277.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781776090242

1776090241

OCLC:

942709573

Publisher Number:

99968911399