Open Book Publishers
No Life Without You: Refugee Love Letters from the 1930s
- Franklin Felsenstein (editor)
- Rachel Pistol (introduction by)
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| Title | No Life Without You |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | Refugee Love Letters from the 1930s |
| Contributor | Franklin Felsenstein (editor) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0334 |
| Landing page | https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/OBP.0334 |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ |
| Copyright | Franklin Felsenstein |
| Publisher | Open Book Publishers |
| Publication place | Cambridge, UK |
| Published on | 2024-03-25 |
| ISBN | 978-1-80064-945-3 (Paperback) |
| 978-1-80064-946-0 (Hardback) | |
| 978-1-80064-947-7 (PDF) | |
| 978-1-80064-951-4 (HTML) | |
| 978-1-80064-948-4 (EPUB) | |
| Short abstract | The letters and journals of Ernst Moritz and Vera Hirsch Felsenstein, two German Jewish refugees caught in the tumultuous years leading to the Second World War, form the core of this book. Abridged in English from the original German, the correspondence and diaries have been expertly compiled and annotated by their only son who preserves his parents’ love story in their own words. Their letters, written from Germany, England, Russia, and Palestine capture their desperate efforts to save themselves and their family, friends and businesses from the fascist tyranny. The book begins by contextualizing the early lives of Moritz and Vera. |
| Long abstract | The letters and journals of Ernst Moritz and Vera Hirsch Felsenstein, two German Jewish refugees caught in the tumultuous years leading to the Second World War, form the core of this book. Abridged in English from the original German, the correspondence and diaries have been expertly compiled and annotated by their only son who preserves his parents’ love story in their own words. Their letters, written from Germany, England, Russia, and Palestine capture their desperate efforts to save themselves and their family, friends and businesses from the fascist tyranny. The book begins by contextualizing the early lives of Moritz and Vera. Because the letters are written to each other almost daily, they are incredibly immediate. Most centrally, the letters recount an astonishing love story, sensual in its intimate detail, and full of dramatic pathos in revealing the anxieties of being apart as the Nazi threat unfolds and broadens. It is told through the voices of two exceptionally articulate letter writers. This volume offers insights into the moral and psychological dilemmas faced by German Jews as a targeted community. It affords a unique appreciation of the impact of historical and socio-political upheavals on the lives of a persecuted minority. A scholarly introduction by Rachel Pistol draws out the main themes raised by this correspondence, observing its relevance to contemporary debates about migration and political authority. |
| Print length | 644 pages (xxii+622) |
| Language | English (Original) |
| Dimensions | 156 x 33 x 234 mm | 6.14" x 1.3" x 9.21" (Paperback) |
| 156 x 48 x 234 mm | 6.14" x 1.89" x 9.21" (Hardback) | |
| Weight | 893g | 31.50oz (Paperback) |
| 1395g | 49.21oz (Hardback) | |
| Media | 88 illustrations |
| OCLC Number | 1428180616 |
| LCCN | 2023446242 |
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Contents
Refugees: A Contextual Introduction
(pp. 1–10)- Rachel Pistol
One: Familien Hirsch
(pp. 13–22)- Frank Felsenstein
Two: Mainly Mope
(pp. 23–32)- Frank Felsenstein
Three: Victoriaschule
(pp. 33–38)- Frank Felsenstein
Four: “And So What?”
(pp. 39–42)- Frank Felsenstein
Five: Heising
(pp. 43–48)- Frank Felsenstein
Six: Of Books And Arts (1): Max Schwimmer
(pp. 49–56)- Frank Felsenstein
Seven: Of Books And Arts (2): Thomas Mann
(pp. 57–60)- Frank Felsenstein
Eight: “I Will Give Up Medicine!!!!!”
(pp. 61–72)- Frank Felsenstein
Nine: Under The Swastika
(pp. 73–82)- Frank Felsenstein
Ten: “Did I Do The Right Thing?”
(pp. 83–94)- Frank Felsenstein
Eleven: Zionism
(pp. 95–102)- Frank Felsenstein
Twelve: Gretel
(pp. 103–108)- Frank Felsenstein
Thirteen: Marks and Mitja
(pp. 109–116)- Frank Felsenstein
- Frank Felsenstein
Fifteen: Mope In Palestine
(pp. 131–138)- Frank Felsenstein
Sixteen: Palestine Or Vera?
(pp. 139–148)- Frank Felsenstein
Seventeen: Dover
(pp. 149–158)- Frank Felsenstein
Eighteen: “Happy And Sad At The Same Time”
(pp. 159–180)- Frank Felsenstein
- Frank Felsenstein
Twenty: “More Of A Stranger Here Now”
(pp. 197–204)- Frank Felsenstein
Twenty-One: “The Letter Writing Last Guest”
(pp. 205–218)- Frank Felsenstein
Twenty-Two: “Human Beings Are Good!”
(pp. 219–234)- Frank Felsenstein
Twenty-Three: “Every Turn Of The Wheel”
(pp. 235–256)- Frank Felsenstein
Twenty-Four: “I Will Come To London Directly”
(pp. 257–284)- Frank Felsenstein
Twenty-Five: “The Alpha And Omega Of My Life”
(pp. 285–306)- Frank Felsenstein
- Frank Felsenstein
Twenty-Seven: “10,108 White Foxes”
(pp. 349–380)- Frank Felsenstein
Twenty-Eight: Visas, Visas, Visas
(pp. 381–416)- Frank Felsenstein
- Frank Felsenstein
Thirty: “The Little Fruit That Fell From The Tree”
(pp. 459–512)- Frank Felsenstein
Thirty-One: “No Life Without You”
(pp. 513–590)- Frank Felsenstein
Thirty-Two: Afterword
(pp. 591–600)- Frank Felsenstein
Contributors
Franklin Felsenstein
(editor)Reed D. Voran Honors Distinguished Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Ball State University
Franklin Felsenstein (aka Frank Felsenstein) is the only son of Maurice (“Mope”) and Vera Felsenstein. He is the Reed D. Voran Honors Distinguished Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Ball State University in Indiana. Before that, he was Reader in Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of Leeds in England. He has also held appointments at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, Vanderbilt University, Yeshiva College, and Drew University. His publications include Anti-Semitic Stereotypes: A Paradigm of Otherness in English Popular Culture (1995), English Trader, Indian Maid: Representing Gender, Race, and Slavery in the New World (1999), and (with James J. Connolly) What Middletown Read: Print Culture in an American Small City (2015). He has edited works by Tobias Smollett (Travels through France and Italy), Peter Aram (A Practical Treatise of Flowers), and John Thelwall (Incle and Yarico). He and his family moved to the United States in 1998. He and his wife now live in Chicago.
Rachel Pistol
(introduction by)European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) Project Management Board at King's College London
National Coordinator of the UK Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI-UK) at University of Southampton
Rachel Pistol is a historian, author, and leading authority on World War II refugees from Nazi oppression and internment during the Second World War. She joined the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London in 2018 to work on the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI), where she is part of the Project Management Board. Rachel is the National Coordinator of the UK Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI-UK), for which she is based at the Parkes Institute at the University of Southampton. She is also Historical Advisor to World Jewish Relief, formerly the Central British Fund, the charity which helped German and Austrian refugees escape to the UK including the Kindertransport and Kitchener Camp rescues.
References
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- Bouverie, Tim, Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War (London: Tim Duggan Books, 2019).
- Ed. Cassel, Chava, The Felsenstein Family Chronicle (Jerusalem: Privately Printed, August 2000). [The text to this book was based on a personal account of the Felsenstein family written by Dr. Ernst Felsenstein of White Plains, New York, a first cousin of my father. The Chronicle version has been heavily bowdlerized. Dr. Felsenstein’s daughter, the late Anne Warner, supplied me with a copy of her father’s original typescript to which I am indebted for several significant details. She gave me full permission to utilize the full text where it supplied additional information.]
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