In 1939, as the Nazis closed in, Alfred Berger mailed a desperate letter to an American stranger who happened to share his last name. He and his wife, Viennese Jews, had found escape routes for their daughters. But now their money, connections, and emotional energy were nearly exhausted. Alfred begged the American recipient of the letter, “You are surely informed about the situation of all Jews … Jews in Central Europe…. By pure chance I got your address…. My daughter and her husband will go… to America…. Help us to follow our children…. It is our last and only hope….”
After languishing in a California attic for decades, Alfred’s letter ended up in the hands of Faris Cassell, a journalist who couldn’t rest until she discovered the ending of the story. Traveling across the United States as well as to Austria, the Czech Republic, Belarus, and Israel, she uncovered an extraordinary story of heart-wrenching loss and unforgettable love that endures to this day.
Did the Bergers’ desperate letter find a response? Did they–and their daughters–survive? Did they leave living descendants?
You will find the answers here.
A story that will move any reader, The Unanswered Letter is a poignant reminder that love and hope never die.
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So much history in this book. So much heartbreak. Absolutely relevant to today’s issues. I could only listen to it in small snatches because the subject matter is so intense. But there was no way I was going to leave this listen (Audible Included) unfinished. I gained a knowledge of American history that is often hidden. God help us if this history repeats itself. God help us if we stand by silently and let it happen.
The Unanswered Letter by Faris Cassell is a stunning and haunting book about the quest of an unrelated couple joining forces with an unknown family to find out what actually happened to a Jewish couple, Alfred and Hedwig Berger after receiving a long lost letter begging for help while entrapped within Austria’s closed and occupied borders during WWII.
I will not rehash the synopsis with the reader in my review, as I want to focus on how amazing and unforgettable this book truly is.
The search to find out what really happened to Alfred and Hedwig takes the author and her husband across several continents and several years. The work that was spent by the author is amazing, even more for the fact that this quest does not even involve her family. The amazing friends and people that she meets, and the family that she is able to bring together through introductions and answering long-standing fundamental questions is heartwarming.
I have a great deal of knowledge at this point concerning the Holocaust, anti-semitism before and after the second war, as well as the displacement camps and difficulties the survivors faced thereafter, but I learned so much more about what the Austrian Jewish people, specifically the Viennese Jewish people, experienced and went through in trying to survive, escape, and hold on to their loved ones and their existence. It made this feel so much more real to me to feel as if I was traveling with them to Massachusetts, Vienna, Poland, and Russia. It was heartbreaking to see families torn apart, to have people you love just disappear one day, to stand in front of your own grave in your last previous moments made me cry several times while I read this journey. This amazing family should have never had to experience any of this.
I loved seeing the pictures the author added, Sydney’s surprising addition to finding where his family originated near Minsk before immigrating to the US, and to find that Gretl and Martha created fulfilling lives despite their harrowing escapes and the loss of their parents. I am so glad to see life blooming despite being so carelessly extinguished. I am so glad that Celia, Micha, Peter, Judith, as well as other family members, were able to have some answers and some closure.
The fundamental questions of who we are, where we came from, what matters most in life, what we truly believe, and what we would do if we were placed in that situation, became questions that the author and her husband asked themselves, as well as what I was asking myself at the end of the book.
This is an amazing book that I will never forget. It is something that has brought me even closer to my own Jewish family and faith, and for that I am truly thankful.
Thank you EW and Regnery Publishing for this ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.
I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon and B&N accounts upon publication.