Book Corner

Letters Never Sent

Yad Vashem Publications' new release, Letters Never Sent: Amsterdam, Westerbork, Bergen-Belsen by Mirjam Bolle is a personal historical account of persecution, distress and anguish.  

In early 1943, Mirjam Levie, a young Jewish woman from Amsterdam, began writing letters to her fiancée, Leo Bolle with whom she was deeply in love. Bolle had immigrated to Eretz Israel a few years earlier. "I am vain enough to believe that this diary may be found hundreds of years from now and serve as an important source of information. That's why I included all the trivial things, because they may provide an outsider with a more vivid picture. After all, I'm so caught up in all this that I can't put myself in the shoes of a person who isn't going through this himself and therefore knows nothing about it. Perhaps one day our children will read it."

Her letters, which were never sent, were written during the deportations of the Jews from Amsterdam; during her incarceration in Westerbork, the main transit camp for Jewish deportees to the death camps in Poland; and during her imprisonment in Bergen-Belsen.

As secretary in the controversial "Joodsche Raad voor Amsterdam" (the Jewish Council for Amsterdam), Mirjam's letters are the only remaining source to describe events from the viewpoint of one of its members. Mirjam managed to hide the letters she wrote in Amsterdam and Westerbork; and those she wrote in Bergen-Belsen she brought with her when she was released as part of an exchange between Dutch Jews and German POWs, and arrived in Eretz Israel on July 10, 1944.

Excerpt from book: Westerbork
   

"My darling. I'm all alone in the school at the moment. "Alone" is a relative notion, for there are at least 100 children outside, with all the noise that playing children make…I had got as far as our arrival at the station. As I wrote, this was an extremely difficult moment. I kept looking around me to see if there was any chance of escape, but there wasn't. Hundreds and hundreds of people filled the platform, nothing but familiar faces, of course…The wagons were unbearably hot. And we had to sit on the floor, of course. Now this matters little to me, but imagine the elderly people. Besides, people kept fainting, while some suffered panic attacks and others had their hands trampled on so they were bleeding. It was a pitiful sight. The train was interminable, and still more people filed onto the platform, huffing and puffing with their heavy luggage. Some, elderly people and parents with young children, sat on top of their luggage on the platform, waiting for someone to help them onto the train. Just like migrants. Many were in tears, naturally, while others just sat there staring. Children were wailing, there was screaming and shouting, but also some jolly greetings, such as "You are here as well?" from spirited youngsters…"

Letters Never Sent: Amsterdam, Westerbork, Bergen-Belsen is available for purchase online or may be ordered by email.