The Hours After: Letters of Love and Longing in War's Aftermath
by Gerda Weissmann Klein, Kurt Klein
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Book Summary Information
Author: Gerda Weissmann Klein, Kurt KleinEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2000-02-19
ISBN: 0312242581
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Book Reviews of The Hours After: Letters of Love and Longing in War's Aftermath
Book Review: What genuinely wonderful people
Summary: 4 Stars
Ever since discovering Anne Frank back in Junior High School, I've always been interested in books about the Holocaust. I recently finished The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy. It's a very well written and important story about the Holocaust. And when I finished it I wanted to know what happened after the end of the book. What happened after the Jews were liberated? Everything from their previous lives was gone, their homes destroyed their families dead, murdered. What would they do? I hadn't read anything about after liberation.
The Hours After tells the wonderful and uplifting story of what happened to Gerda Weissmann after liberation. The story is revealed to us through letters between Gerda and her fianc?, Kurt Klein, one of the American soldiers who liberated her from a slave-labor camp in Czechoslovakia in May 1945.
At first I didn't care for the format of the book. I felt it had a sometimes awkward rhythm, going back and forth from Gerda's voice to Kurt's but at some point that feeling disappeared and all I could focus on was what would happened next.
I thought their letters to each other were beautiful, especially Kurt's. What a wonderful gift they have in these letters. I also thought that the way the letters were written was interesting, maybe it was the way they translated from German to English but they seemed very old fashioned even for 1945.
I thought it interesting that Gerda said her gushing (about her love and affection for Kurt) and sharing her deepest feelings was impolite. Later she asked to be forgiven for the burden she imposes on him by discussing the loss of her parents and the disappointment she's caused her uncle by not asking his permission to marry. I wonder the origins of such formality? And sometimes I wish there was just an iota of it left in our culture today.
I was moved by the story of Gerda's Grandfather who was exiled to Siberia and how she drew strength from his experience. Gerda is an amazing person, very smart, she never seems to get frustrated by the bureaucrats who make her emigration to the United States so difficult. And when she had the opportunity to exact some justice or revenge (in the case of her landlady and her son) she could only feel empathy for them. What an amazing and compassionate soul!
The process of preparing all of their papers for their marriage and Gerda's emigration to the US was excruciatingly prolonged! Gerda and Kurt communicated primarily by sloooow snail mail that was delivered via go-betweens until April 1946 (with the exception of a few telegrams). How different from our lightning fast communications and overnight deliveries of today.
A wonderful and uplifting story!
Summary of The Hours After: Letters of Love and Longing in War's Aftermath
The love letters of Gerda and Kurt Klein, revealing one of the greatest love stories ever told.Over fifty years ago, Gerda Weissmann was barely alive at the end of a 350-mile death march that took her from a slave labor camp in Germany to the Czech border. On May 7, 1945, the American military stormed the area, and the first soldier to approach Gerda was Kurt Klein. She guided him to her fellow prisoners who lay sick and dying on the ground, and quoted Goethe: "Noble be man, merciful and good." Perhaps it was her irony, her composure, her evident compassion in the face of tragedy, that struck Kurt Klein. A great love had begun. Forced to separate just weeks after liberation and hours after their engagement, Gerda and Kurt began a correspondence that lasted until their reunion and wedding in Paris a year later. Their poignant letters reflect upon the horrors of war and genocide, but above all, upon the rapture and salvation of true love.
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