Review (PDF)

Inherit The Truth 1939-1945: The Documented Experiences Of A Survivor Of Auschwitz And Belsen

This is the story of the destruction of a talented Jewish family, and of the survival against all the odds of two young sisters. It is one of the most moving stories to emerge from the Second World War. Anita and her elder sister Renate defied death at the hands of the Gestapo and the SS over a period of two and a half years when they were sucked into the whirlpool of Nazi mass extermination, being first imprisoned as ‘criminals’ and then being transferred, separately, to Auschwitz, and finally to Belsen when the Russians approached. They were saved by their exceptional courage, determination and ingenuity, and by several improbable strokes of luck. At Auschwitz, Anita escaped annihilation through her talents as a cellist when she was co-opted into the camp orchestra directed by Alma Rosé, niece of Gustav Mahler. Her book is especially remarkable because of the many documents she has managed to preserve, most of them now lodged in the archives of the Imperial War Museum in London. In a sequence of family letters to her sister Marianne, who was marooned in England, from just before the war to 1942 when her parents were deported and liquidated, an atmosphere of happy normality gradually gives way to latent terror and foreboding. The appalling predicament of the Lasker family, and of Anita and Renate in particular when the rest of their relations had been deported and they were left totally alone in Breslau, could not be more poignantly conveyed. They were caught by the Gestapo trying to flee to Paris, and sent to prison: another piece of ‘luck’, as it turned out, since they were spared the worse horrors of Auschwitz for a crucial year. After the liberation of Belsen in April 1945, the correspondence with Marianne in England resumed. Anita was seconded to the British Army, and she quotes first-hand material about the early days of the occupation, including a transcript of part of the Lüneburg trial in late 1945 when she gave evidence about Nazi atrocities at Auschwitz and Belsen, and was confronted in court by her tormentors. In 1946 she and Renate were both finally permitted to emigrate to England. Three years later, Anita became a founder member of the English Chamber Orchestra, in which she continued to play the cello until recently. Anita’s book featured in BBC Radio 4's ‘Desert Island Discs’ programme on 25th August 1996. She had also told her story in a series of five BBC Radio 4 programmes in 1994; and a BBC 2 TV film about her experiences, Playing to Survive, was screened in October 1996. Walter Laqueur, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, in Holocaust and Genocide Studies: ‘It is my job...to read most of the current literature on the Holocaust, and if someone had the time and inclination to read only one book published recently, I would...choose without hesitation a small book [Inherit the Truth] which appeared last month in England...it is precisely as a historian that I recommend this account...’

File Size: 9454 KB

Print Length: 184 pages

Publisher: Giles de la Mare Publishers (July 18, 2012)

Publication Date: July 18, 2012

Sold by:  Digital Services LLC

Language: English

ASIN: B00APDUMM8

Text-to-Speech: Enabled

X-Ray: Not Enabled

Word Wise: Enabled

Lending: Not Enabled

Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #757,954 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store) #36 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Sheet Music & Scores > Composers > Gilbert #183 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Sheet Music & Scores > Forms & Genres > Musicals #183 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Sheet Music & Scores > Historical Period > Modern Popular

This was such a wonderful book! It was almost as if both the author and her sister were writing the book, there were quite a few family letters used in the book written by both sisters. Mostly though, I found the entire book fascinating. Much of the book was about the destruction of her family, which was such a tragedy. Her family was so musical and so talented. It was also very different reading the authors description of the Auschwitz Orchestra and Alma Rose the conductor of the orchestra. I had read Playing For Time by Fania Fenelon, also about her time in the Orchestra, and the two books were very different. I had always had an interest in the musicians of the Auschwitz Orchestra and I was thrilled to be able to get this book. An excellent book that I highly recommend to everyone.

Anita Lawler, a passionate woman shares the story of her and her sister as they spend time in jail and the are sent to the concentrations camps. I believe her saving grace was that she spent an extended amount of time in jail which surely saved her from death at the camps. Her cello was also instrumental in saving her life.

Astonishing story of survival. The human spirit prevails here and thrives. It also reminds us of the horrors of the genocide.

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