How does one understand the incomprehensible human tragedy of the Holocaust? The answer: One story at a time. In “Hidden Letters” (Star Bright Books), Deborah Slier and Ian Shine have edited a treasure trove of letters that Philip “Flip” Slier, a Dutch Jew, wrote during 1942 at the Dutch forced labor camp Molengoot. The translations are by Marion van Binsbergen-Pritchard.
Fifty years after the war, these letters lay hidden in a bathroom ceiling of an Amsterdam building. The foreman of a Dutch demolition company found them by chance and gave them to the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation. In 1999, they landed in the hands of Deborah Slier, Flip’s first cousin, whose father’s 1922 immigration to South Africa saved her from the horrors experienced by her family. The attempts to better understand her cousin and the calamity that befell him through his writings bore “Letters.”
The correspondence reveals an 18-year-old’s moods, his hardships in the work camp, his decision to go into hiding, and requests for clothing and provisions. Often addressed to his parents, the youth’s sensitive, matter-of-fact correspondences offer insights into his daily life. On September 13, he writes: “What is a person? What is all of life? Nothing. And still we don’t want to lose it, and that is why we have to be strong and have faith. Someday we will be liberated!!!”
Foreboding and chilling, these words accompany pictures of the handsome youth posing with friends during a break from work detail, or smiling outside a military barracks. Additional pictures, war documents and maps provide a context for readers to view Flip’s short life and to fully appreciate the legacy he left to the world.
The Forward welcomes reader comments in order to promote thoughtful discussion on issues of importance to the Jewish community. In the interest of maintaining a civil forum, the Forward requires that all commenters be appropriately respectful toward our writers, other commenters and the subjects of the articles. Vigorous debate and reasoned critique are welcome; name-calling and personal invective are not. While we generally do not seek to edit or actively moderate comments, the Forward reserves the right to remove comments for any reason.
Why a Rabbi Should Not Marry Outside the Faith
As First Maharats Graduate, Orthodox Women Leap Forward
Barbra Streisand Visits Western Wall After Landing in Israel With Puppy
Tapping Into Growing Lure of Hidden Jewish Heritage
Montreal's First Jewish Mayor Michael Applebaum Hit With Corruption Charges
Copyright © 2013, Forward Association, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
You've successfully signed up!
What you have done and are doing is wonderful. I am attempting to edit the letters of the Chesnutt sisters, two African American women who lived from the late l800s to the l960s. I simply want to let them tell their story. Wish me luck, as every publisher I have approached wants me to encroach upon their stories. Keep on doing what you are doing because the story of the Holocaust must always be told.
As you say, it is more powerful to let people tell their own story. The story of the Holocaust should be told, and as it is well documented it can be used as a powerful plea to make the destruction of Jews as well as the destruction of any group unthinkable.
Hidden Letters is dedicated to all victims of genocide, whether they be white or black, Muslim, Jew or Christian. It is terrible to watch any kid being killed; it is not relevant where the kid lives. When John Donne said: "no man is an island, entire of itself," he was right but a bit ahead of his time.