The first large, multi-voiced narrative of the experiences of deported Jews
The deportation order was relentless - one suitcase was allowed, there was hardly any time to settle the affairs and say goodbye. Then they were torn from their lives. Starting in autumn 1941, Jews who remained in the German Reich were systematically deported "to the East". Andrea Löw masterfully interweaves their stories into a grand narrative that makes the enormity of the crime emotionally accessible to the reader. By speaking out themselves, the people become visible - as mothers, children, grandparents, as lovers, as young and old. They describe their fears and hopes, the events leading up to their departure, the transport. For most of them, certain death awaits them at their destination; the survivors tell of imprisonment, escape and rescue. They were all people who had to experience the unimaginable - this book brings them very close to us, with all their courage and suffering.
"It is not the eyewitness documents that serve the historiography here, but the historiography that serves the brutally torn biographies of the victims." - Tagesspiegel, Konstantin Sakkas
"An important book, impressive and unsparing. Important because it condenses the numerous testimonies of the deportees and forms a strand of memory." - t-online, Marc von Lüpke
"Andrea Löw weaves the stories of the Jews who were deported by the Nazis into a polyphonic, unbelievable narrative." - Focus
"A book based on reality, not a distanced view." - Frankfurter Rundschau, Pitt von Bebenburg
