The Unanswered Letter
One Holocaust Family’s Desperate Plea for Help
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $17.90
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Kate Mulligan
-
By:
-
Faris Cassell
About this listen
"Dear Madam - You are surely informed about the situation of all Jews in Central Europe and this letter will not astonish you."
In August 1939, just days before World War II broke out in Europe, a Jewish man in Vienna named Alfred Berger mailed a desperate letter to a stranger in America who shared his last name.
"By pure chance I got your address...I beg you instantly to send for me and my wife...."
Decades later, journalist Faris Cassell stumbled upon the stunning letter and became determined to uncover the story behind it. How did the American Bergers respond? Did Alfred and his family escape Nazi Germany? Over a decade-long investigation, Cassell traveled thousands of miles; explored archives and offices in Austria, Belarus, Israel, and the Czech Republic; interviewed descendants; and found letters, photos, and sketches made by family members during the Holocaust.
This is Cassell’s account of the devastating true story of The Unanswered Letter.
©2020 Faris Cassell (P)2020 Blackstone PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
-
Inseparable
- The Hess Twins' Holocaust Journey Through Bergen-Belsen to America
- By: Faris Cassell
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stefan and Marion Hess’s happy childhood was shattered in 1944. Torn from their home in Amsterdam, the six-year-old twins and their parents were deported to a place their mother called “a dying hell”—the infamous concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. Inseparable is the vivid account of one family’s struggle to survive the Holocaust.
-
-
The Truth
- By Michael on 01-15-24
By: Faris Cassell
-
Lily's Promise
- Holding On to Hope Through Auschwitz and Beyond—A Story for All Generations
- By: Lily Ebert, Dov Forman
- Narrated by: Charles HRH The Prince of Wales, Lily Ebert, Dov Forman, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On Yom Kippur, 1944, fighting to stay alive as a prisoner in Auschwitz, Lily Ebert made a promise to herself. She would survive the hell she was in and tell the world her story, for everyone who couldn’t. Now, at ninety-eight, this remarkable woman—and TikTok sensation, thanks to the help of her eighteen-year-old great-grandson—fulfills that vow, relaying the details of her harrowing experiences with candor, charm, and an overflowing heart.
-
-
Narration is everything
- By S. Rosen on 06-02-22
By: Lily Ebert, and others
-
The Redhead of Auschwitz
- A True Story
- By: Nechama Birnbaum
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rosie was always told her red hair was a curse, but she never believed it. She often dreamed what it would look like under a white veil with the man of her dreams by her side. However, her life takes a harrowing turn in 1944 when she is forced out of her home and sent to the most gruesome of places: Auschwitz. Upon arrival, Rosie’s head is shaved and along with the loss of her beautiful hair, she loses the life she once cherished.
-
-
It’s so real…
- By Diane Findley on 07-02-22
By: Nechama Birnbaum
-
Into the Forest
- A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love
- By: Rebecca Frankel
- Narrated by: Natalie Pela
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1942, the Rabinowitz family narrowly escaped the Nazi ghetto in their Polish town by fleeing to the forbidding Bialowieza Forest. They miraculously survived two years in the woods—through brutal winters, Typhus outbreaks, and merciless Nazi raids—until they were liberated by the Red Army in 1944. After the war, they trekked across the Alps into Italy, where they settled as refugees before eventually immigrating to the United States.
-
-
Great story with an added benefit
- By Scottsville Stu on 12-30-21
By: Rebecca Frankel
-
My Mother's Secret
- Based on a True Holocaust Story
- By: J. L. Witterick
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 2 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Franciszka and her daughter, Helena, are simple, ordinary people until 1939, when the Nazis invade their homeland. Providing shelter to Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland is a death sentence, but Franciszka and Helena do exactly that. In their tiny home in Sokal, they hide a Jewish family in a loft above their pigsty, a Jewish doctor with his wife and son in a makeshift cellar under the kitchen, and a defecting German soldier in the attic - each party completely unknown to the others.
-
-
WONDERFUL!!!
- By Robyn Collins on 02-29-16
By: J. L. Witterick
-
The Dressmakers of Auschwitz
- The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive
- By: Lucy Adlington
- Narrated by: Lucy Adlington
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the height of the Holocaust, 25 young inmates of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp - mainly Jewish women and girls - were selected to design, cut, and sew beautiful fashions for elite Nazi women in a dedicated salon. It was work that they hoped would spare them from the gas chambers. This fashion workshop - called the Upper Tailoring Studio - was established by Hedwig Höss, the camp commandant’s wife, and patronized by the wives of SS guards and officers.
-
-
Not what I expected given description and preview
- By Kaeli Mathes on 09-24-21
By: Lucy Adlington
-
Inseparable
- The Hess Twins' Holocaust Journey Through Bergen-Belsen to America
- By: Faris Cassell
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stefan and Marion Hess’s happy childhood was shattered in 1944. Torn from their home in Amsterdam, the six-year-old twins and their parents were deported to a place their mother called “a dying hell”—the infamous concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. Inseparable is the vivid account of one family’s struggle to survive the Holocaust.
-
-
The Truth
- By Michael on 01-15-24
By: Faris Cassell
-
Lily's Promise
- Holding On to Hope Through Auschwitz and Beyond—A Story for All Generations
- By: Lily Ebert, Dov Forman
- Narrated by: Charles HRH The Prince of Wales, Lily Ebert, Dov Forman, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On Yom Kippur, 1944, fighting to stay alive as a prisoner in Auschwitz, Lily Ebert made a promise to herself. She would survive the hell she was in and tell the world her story, for everyone who couldn’t. Now, at ninety-eight, this remarkable woman—and TikTok sensation, thanks to the help of her eighteen-year-old great-grandson—fulfills that vow, relaying the details of her harrowing experiences with candor, charm, and an overflowing heart.
-
-
Narration is everything
- By S. Rosen on 06-02-22
By: Lily Ebert, and others
-
The Redhead of Auschwitz
- A True Story
- By: Nechama Birnbaum
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rosie was always told her red hair was a curse, but she never believed it. She often dreamed what it would look like under a white veil with the man of her dreams by her side. However, her life takes a harrowing turn in 1944 when she is forced out of her home and sent to the most gruesome of places: Auschwitz. Upon arrival, Rosie’s head is shaved and along with the loss of her beautiful hair, she loses the life she once cherished.
-
-
It’s so real…
- By Diane Findley on 07-02-22
By: Nechama Birnbaum
-
Into the Forest
- A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love
- By: Rebecca Frankel
- Narrated by: Natalie Pela
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1942, the Rabinowitz family narrowly escaped the Nazi ghetto in their Polish town by fleeing to the forbidding Bialowieza Forest. They miraculously survived two years in the woods—through brutal winters, Typhus outbreaks, and merciless Nazi raids—until they were liberated by the Red Army in 1944. After the war, they trekked across the Alps into Italy, where they settled as refugees before eventually immigrating to the United States.
-
-
Great story with an added benefit
- By Scottsville Stu on 12-30-21
By: Rebecca Frankel
-
My Mother's Secret
- Based on a True Holocaust Story
- By: J. L. Witterick
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 2 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Franciszka and her daughter, Helena, are simple, ordinary people until 1939, when the Nazis invade their homeland. Providing shelter to Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland is a death sentence, but Franciszka and Helena do exactly that. In their tiny home in Sokal, they hide a Jewish family in a loft above their pigsty, a Jewish doctor with his wife and son in a makeshift cellar under the kitchen, and a defecting German soldier in the attic - each party completely unknown to the others.
-
-
WONDERFUL!!!
- By Robyn Collins on 02-29-16
By: J. L. Witterick
-
The Dressmakers of Auschwitz
- The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive
- By: Lucy Adlington
- Narrated by: Lucy Adlington
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the height of the Holocaust, 25 young inmates of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp - mainly Jewish women and girls - were selected to design, cut, and sew beautiful fashions for elite Nazi women in a dedicated salon. It was work that they hoped would spare them from the gas chambers. This fashion workshop - called the Upper Tailoring Studio - was established by Hedwig Höss, the camp commandant’s wife, and patronized by the wives of SS guards and officers.
-
-
Not what I expected given description and preview
- By Kaeli Mathes on 09-24-21
By: Lucy Adlington
-
The Personal Librarian
- By: Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps create a world-class collection.
-
-
A Treat For This Academic Librarian!
- By AlTonya on 07-14-21
By: Marie Benedict, and others
-
The Book of Lost Names
- By: Kristin Harmel
- Narrated by: Madeleine Maby
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lina Meisel, a retired librarian in Florida, is reading the newspaper one morning when she freezes. Her eyes lock on a photograph of a book she hasn’t seen in 65 years - a book she recognizes as The Book of Lost Names. The accompanying article discusses the looting of libraries by the Nazis across Europe during World War II - an experience Lina remembers well - and the search to reunite people with the texts stolen from them so long ago. The book in the photograph is one of the most fascinating cases.
-
-
Another whiney female "heroine"
- By Patricia on 08-15-20
By: Kristin Harmel
-
The Secret Holocaust Diaries
- The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister
- By: Nonna Bannister, Denise George, Carolyn Tomlin
- Narrated by: Rebecca Gallagher
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For half a century, a terrible secret lay hidden, locked in a trunk in an attic... photos, official documents, and scraps of a diary written by a young girl. "The time has come when I must share my life story... some facts from the past that could make a contribution, however small it may be, to the history of mankind." The Secret Holocaust Diaries is a haunting eyewitness account of Nonna Lisowskaja Bannister, a remarkable Russian-American woman who saw and survived unspeakable evils as a young girl.
-
-
I respect Nonna
- By Susan on 12-26-11
By: Nonna Bannister, and others
-
Beyond the Tracks
- A WW2 Novel Based on Harrowing True Events
- By: Michael Reit
- Narrated by: Mike Paul
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Jewish families of Berlin start disappearing in nightly raids, 21-year-old Jacob Kagan knows it’s only a matter of time before the trucks come for him. Along with his family and best friend, he flees the country he’s always called home to find shelter in a Dutch refugee camp. Before long, the Netherlands falls to the Nazi war machine - Jacob’s new home is transformed into a transit camp with weekly trains bound for the horrors of the Eastern concentration camps.
-
-
Beyond
- By Ellen, Ontario, Canada on 01-16-22
By: Michael Reit
-
My Friend Anne Frank
- The Inspiring and Heartbreaking True Story of Best Friends Torn Apart and Reunited Against All Odds
- By: Hannah Pick-Goslar, Dina Kraft
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1933, Hannah Pick-Goslar and her family fled Nazi Germany to live in Amsterdam, where she struck up a close friendship with her next-door neighbor, an outspoken and fun-loving young girl named Anne Frank. For several years, the inseparable pair enjoyed a carefree childhood of games, sleepovers, and treats with the other children in their neighborhood of Rivierenbuurt. But in 1942, Hannah and Anne's lives abruptly changed forever.
-
-
the missing piece to Anne’s story and the complete picture of Hannah’s
- By Wilson on 07-13-23
By: Hannah Pick-Goslar, and others
-
The Sisters of Auschwitz
- The True Story of Two Jewish Sisters’ Resistance in the Heart of Nazi Territory
- By: Roxane van Iperen
- Narrated by: Susan Hoffman
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unforgettable story of two unsung heroes of World War II: sisters Janny and Lien Brilleslijper who joined the Dutch Resistance, helped save dozen of lives, were captured by the Nazis, and ultimately survived the Holocaust.
-
-
A Miss
- By FritzFamily on 10-06-21
-
American Dirt
- A Novel
- By: Jeanine Cummins
- Narrated by: Yareli Arizmendi
- Length: 16 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier, the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city, is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.
-
-
Completely unrealistic
- By Marlene L Marquez on 02-12-20
By: Jeanine Cummins
-
Beneath a Scarlet Sky
- A Novel
- By: Mark Sullivan
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 17 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He's a normal Italian teenager - obsessed with music, food, and girls - but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior. In an attempt to protect him, Pino's parents force him to enlist as a German soldier - a move they think will keep him out of combat.
-
-
The Best Thing? It Really Happened!
- By Chip Atkinson on 08-07-17
By: Mark Sullivan
-
Five Chimneys
- A Woman Survivor's True Story of Auschwitz
- By: Olga Lengyel
- Narrated by: Jennifer Wydra
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Olga Lengyel tells, frankly and without compromise, one of the most horrifying stories of all time. This true, documented chronicle is the intimate, day-to-day record of a beautiful woman who survived the nightmare of Auschwitz and Birchenau. This book is a necessary reminder of one of the ugliest chapters in the history of human civilization.
-
-
Five Chimneys
- By Grannie Annie on 04-03-19
By: Olga Lengyel
-
People Love Dead Jews
- Reports from a Haunted Present
- By: Dara Horn
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture - and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly anti-Semitic attacks - Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: She was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones.
-
-
Wrong Narrator for this Book
- By MYK on 01-04-22
By: Dara Horn
-
The Book of Lost Friends
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Wingate
- Narrated by: Sophie Amoss, Sullivan Jones, Robin Miles, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the best-selling author of Before We Were Yours comes a dramatic historical novel of three young women searching for family amid the destruction of the post-Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who learns of their story and its vital connection to her students’ lives.
-
-
I want more!!!
- By Mrstlg on 04-11-20
By: Lisa Wingate
-
Sunflower Sisters
- A Novel
- By: Martha Hall Kelly
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld, Shayna Small, Jenna Lamia, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Georgeanna “Georgey” Woolsey isn’t meant for the world of lavish parties and the demure attitudes of women of her stature. So when war ignites the nation, Georgey follows her passion for nursing during a time when doctors considered women on the battlefront a bother. In proving them wrong, she and her sister Eliza venture from New York to Washington, DC, to Gettysburg and witness the unparalleled horrors of slavery as they become involved in the war effort.
-
-
It is a hard book to "listen" to.
- By Anna on 04-09-21
Related to this topic
-
When Time Stopped
- A Memoir of My Father's War and What Remains
- By: Ariana Neumann
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this remarkably moving memoir Ariana Neumann dives into the secrets of her father’s past: years spent hiding in plain sight in war-torn Berlin, the annihilation of dozens of family members in the Holocaust, and the courageous choice to build anew.
-
-
yesterday as fresh as today
- By reader mother on 02-17-20
By: Ariana Neumann
-
House of Glass
- The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family
- By: Hadley Freeman
- Narrated by: Hadley Freeman
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hadley Freeman knew her grandmother, Sara, lived in France just as Hitler started to gain power, but rarely did anyone in her family talk about it. Long after her grandmother’s death, she found a shoebox tucked in the closet containing photographs of her grandmother with a mysterious stranger, a cryptic telegram from the Red Cross, and a drawing signed by Picasso. This discovery sent Freeman on a decade-long quest to uncover the significance of these keepsakes, taking her from Picasso’s archives in Paris to a secret room in a farmhouse in Auvergne to Long Island to Auschwitz.
-
-
Performance
- By Derek on 08-30-22
By: Hadley Freeman
-
Inge's War
- A German Woman's Story of Family, Secrets, and Survival Under Hitler
- By: Svenja O'Donnell
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Growing up in Paris, the daughter of a German mother and an Irish father, Svenja O'Donnell knew little of her family's German past. In this transporting and illuminating audiobook, the award-winning journalist vividly reconstructs the story of her grandmother Inge's life from the rise of the Nazis through the brutal postwar years, from falling in love with a man who was sent to the Eastern Front just after she became pregnant with his child, to spearheading her family's flight as the Red Army closed in, her young daughter in tow.
-
-
Ordinary German Citizens Caught Up
- By Hinterlander on 08-22-23
By: Svenja O'Donnell
-
Last Boat Out of Shanghai
- The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao's Revolution
- By: Helen Zia
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 17 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The dramatic real-life stories of four young people caught up in the mass exodus of Shanghai in the wake of China's 1949 Communist revolution. Benny must decide either to escape to Hong Kong or navigate the intricacies of a newly Communist China. Annuo, forced to flee with her father, a defeated Nationalist official, becomes an unwelcome exile in Taiwan. The financially strapped Ho fights deportation from the US in order to continue his studies while his family struggles at home. Bing, given away by her poor parents, faces the prospect of a new life among strangers in America.
-
-
Great book, poor performance
- By Helpful Buyer on 07-02-19
By: Helen Zia
-
Paper Love
- Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind
- By: Sarah Wildman
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Years after her grandfather's death, journalist Sarah Wildman stumbled upon a cache of his letters in a file labeled "Correspondence: Patients A-G". What she found inside weren't dry medical histories; instead what was written opened a path into the destroyed world that was her family's prewar Vienna. One woman's letters stood out: those from Valy-Valerie Scheftel, her grandfather's lover who remained behind when he fled Europe six months after the Nazis annexed Austria.
-
-
Compelling and Personal Exploration
- By Murphee on 08-09-23
By: Sarah Wildman
-
The Last Jews in Berlin
- By: Leonard Gross
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, approximately 160,000 Jews called Berlin home. By 1943 less than 5,000 remained in the nation's capital, the epicenter of Nazism, and by the end of the war, that number had dwindled to 1,000. All the others had died in air raids, starved to death, committed suicide, or been shipped off to the death camps. In this captivating and harrowing book, Leonard Gross details the real-life stories of a dozen Jewish men and women who spent the final 27 months of World War II underground, hiding in plain sight.
-
-
Very good WWll Jewish lives in Berlin
- By it.is grat!' on 10-30-24
By: Leonard Gross
-
When Time Stopped
- A Memoir of My Father's War and What Remains
- By: Ariana Neumann
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this remarkably moving memoir Ariana Neumann dives into the secrets of her father’s past: years spent hiding in plain sight in war-torn Berlin, the annihilation of dozens of family members in the Holocaust, and the courageous choice to build anew.
-
-
yesterday as fresh as today
- By reader mother on 02-17-20
By: Ariana Neumann
-
House of Glass
- The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family
- By: Hadley Freeman
- Narrated by: Hadley Freeman
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hadley Freeman knew her grandmother, Sara, lived in France just as Hitler started to gain power, but rarely did anyone in her family talk about it. Long after her grandmother’s death, she found a shoebox tucked in the closet containing photographs of her grandmother with a mysterious stranger, a cryptic telegram from the Red Cross, and a drawing signed by Picasso. This discovery sent Freeman on a decade-long quest to uncover the significance of these keepsakes, taking her from Picasso’s archives in Paris to a secret room in a farmhouse in Auvergne to Long Island to Auschwitz.
-
-
Performance
- By Derek on 08-30-22
By: Hadley Freeman
-
Inge's War
- A German Woman's Story of Family, Secrets, and Survival Under Hitler
- By: Svenja O'Donnell
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Growing up in Paris, the daughter of a German mother and an Irish father, Svenja O'Donnell knew little of her family's German past. In this transporting and illuminating audiobook, the award-winning journalist vividly reconstructs the story of her grandmother Inge's life from the rise of the Nazis through the brutal postwar years, from falling in love with a man who was sent to the Eastern Front just after she became pregnant with his child, to spearheading her family's flight as the Red Army closed in, her young daughter in tow.
-
-
Ordinary German Citizens Caught Up
- By Hinterlander on 08-22-23
By: Svenja O'Donnell
-
Last Boat Out of Shanghai
- The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao's Revolution
- By: Helen Zia
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 17 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The dramatic real-life stories of four young people caught up in the mass exodus of Shanghai in the wake of China's 1949 Communist revolution. Benny must decide either to escape to Hong Kong or navigate the intricacies of a newly Communist China. Annuo, forced to flee with her father, a defeated Nationalist official, becomes an unwelcome exile in Taiwan. The financially strapped Ho fights deportation from the US in order to continue his studies while his family struggles at home. Bing, given away by her poor parents, faces the prospect of a new life among strangers in America.
-
-
Great book, poor performance
- By Helpful Buyer on 07-02-19
By: Helen Zia
-
Paper Love
- Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind
- By: Sarah Wildman
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Years after her grandfather's death, journalist Sarah Wildman stumbled upon a cache of his letters in a file labeled "Correspondence: Patients A-G". What she found inside weren't dry medical histories; instead what was written opened a path into the destroyed world that was her family's prewar Vienna. One woman's letters stood out: those from Valy-Valerie Scheftel, her grandfather's lover who remained behind when he fled Europe six months after the Nazis annexed Austria.
-
-
Compelling and Personal Exploration
- By Murphee on 08-09-23
By: Sarah Wildman
-
The Last Jews in Berlin
- By: Leonard Gross
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, approximately 160,000 Jews called Berlin home. By 1943 less than 5,000 remained in the nation's capital, the epicenter of Nazism, and by the end of the war, that number had dwindled to 1,000. All the others had died in air raids, starved to death, committed suicide, or been shipped off to the death camps. In this captivating and harrowing book, Leonard Gross details the real-life stories of a dozen Jewish men and women who spent the final 27 months of World War II underground, hiding in plain sight.
-
-
Very good WWll Jewish lives in Berlin
- By it.is grat!' on 10-30-24
By: Leonard Gross
-
My Friend Anne Frank
- The Inspiring and Heartbreaking True Story of Best Friends Torn Apart and Reunited Against All Odds
- By: Hannah Pick-Goslar, Dina Kraft
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1933, Hannah Pick-Goslar and her family fled Nazi Germany to live in Amsterdam, where she struck up a close friendship with her next-door neighbor, an outspoken and fun-loving young girl named Anne Frank. For several years, the inseparable pair enjoyed a carefree childhood of games, sleepovers, and treats with the other children in their neighborhood of Rivierenbuurt. But in 1942, Hannah and Anne's lives abruptly changed forever.
-
-
the missing piece to Anne’s story and the complete picture of Hannah’s
- By Wilson on 07-13-23
By: Hannah Pick-Goslar, and others
-
The Nazi’s Granddaughter
- How I Discovered My Grandfather Was a War Criminal
- By: Silvia Foti
- Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir, Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A deathbed promise leads a daughter on an incredible journey to write about her grandfather who was a famous war hero. But this journey had a terrible destination: the discovery that he was a Nazi war criminal.
-
-
A Compelling Story Well Told
- By Catherine S. Read on 03-17-22
By: Silvia Foti
-
The Boy Between Worlds
- A Biography
- By: Annejet van der Zijl, Kristen Gehrman - translator
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When they fell in love in 1928, Rika and Waldemar could have not been more different. She was a thirty-seven-year-old Dutch-born mother, estranged from her husband. He was her immigrant boarder, not yet twenty, and a wealthy Surinamese descendant of slaves. The child they have together, brown skinned and blue eyed, brings the couple great joy yet raises some eyebrows. Until the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands explodes their promising life. What unfolds is more than the astonishing story of a love that prevailed over convention. It’s also the quest of a young boy.
-
-
Should Be Required Reading
- By Pam Pearson on 08-20-19
By: Annejet van der Zijl, and others
-
Agent Sonya
- Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: Ben Macintyre
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1942, in a quiet village in the leafy English Cotswolds, a thin, elegant woman lived in a small cottage with her three children and her husband, who worked as a machinist nearby. Ursula Burton was friendly but reserved, and spoke English with a slight foreign accent. By all accounts, she seemed to be living a simple, unassuming life. Her neighbors in the village knew little about her. They didn’t know that she was a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer. They didn’t know that her husband was also a spy, or that she was running powerful agents across Europe.
-
-
Wanted to love it
- By Robert Bell on 09-30-20
By: Ben Macintyre
-
My Name Is Selma
- The Remarkable Memoir of a Jewish Resistance Fighter and Ravensbrück Survivor
- By: Selma van de Perre
- Narrated by: Rachel Bavidge
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Selma van de Perre was 17 when World War II began. Until then, being Jewish in the Netherlands had not been an issue. But by 1941 it had become a matter of life or death. On several occasions, Selma barely avoided being rounded up by the Nazis. While her father was summoned to a work camp and eventually hospitalized in a Dutch transition camp, her mother and sister went into hiding - until they were betrayed in June 1943 and sent to Auschwitz.
-
-
Remarkable
- By slp 4 me on 05-11-21
-
Resistance Women
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Chiaverini
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 20 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the New York Times best-selling author of Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker, an enthralling historical saga that recreates the danger, romance, and sacrifice of an era and brings to life one courageous, passionate American - Mildred Fish Harnack - and her circle of women friends who waged a clandestine battle against Hitler in Nazi Berlin.
-
-
One of THE best historical fiction WW2 books!
- By JeanAnn Trombley on 06-04-19
-
On the Run in Nazi Berlin
- A Memoir
- By: Bert Lewyn, Bev Saltzman Lewyn - contributor
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Suzanne Toren
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Berlin, 1942. The Gestapo arrest 18-year-old Bert Lewyn and his parents, sending the latter to their deaths and Bert to work in a factory making guns for the Nazi war effort. Miraculously tipped off the morning the Gestapo round up all the Jews who work in the factories, Bert goes underground. He finds shelter sometimes with compassionate civilians, sometimes with people who find his skills useful and sometimes in the cellars of bombed-out buildings.
-
-
NOT YOUR USUAL STORY ABOUT THE NAZIS...FANTASTIC!
- By Steve on 03-21-19
By: Bert Lewyn, and others
-
I Want You to Know We're Still Here
- A Post-Holocaust Memoir
- By: Esther Safran Foer
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer, Esther Safran Foer
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Esther Safran Foer grew up in a home where the past was too terrible to speak of. The child of parents who were each the sole survivors of their respective families, for Esther the Holocaust loomed in the backdrop of daily life, felt but never discussed. The result was a childhood marked by painful silences and continued tragedy. Even as she built a successful career, married, and raised three children, Esther always felt herself searching.
-
-
Interesting but…
- By mk on 08-23-21
-
50 Children
- One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany
- By: Steven Pressman
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In early 1939, few Americans were thinking about the darkening storm clouds over Europe. Nor did they have much sympathy for the growing number of Jewish families that were increasingly threatened and brutalized by Adolf Hitler's policies in Germany and Austria. But one ordinary American couple decided that something had to be done. Despite overwhelming obstacles - both in Europe and in the United States - Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus made a bold and unprecedented decision to travel into Nazi Germany in an effort to save a group of Jewish children.
-
-
I didn't want it to end
- By David Shear on 05-07-14
By: Steven Pressman
-
999
- The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz
- By: Heather Dune Macadam, Caroline Moorehead - foreword
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Filled with a sense of adventure and national pride, they left their parents' homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service. Instead, the young women - many of them teenagers - were sent to Auschwitz. Their government paid 500 Reich Marks (about $200) apiece for Nazis to take them as slave labor. Of those 999 innocent deportees, only a few survived.
-
-
I don’t think you can ever fully understand
- By Shelley on 02-25-20
By: Heather Dune Macadam, and others
-
The S.S. Officer's Armchair
- Uncovering the Hidden Life of a Nazi
- By: Daniel Lee
- Narrated by: Alex Wyndham
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One night at a dinner party in Florence, historian Daniel Lee was told about a remarkable discovery. An upholsterer in Amsterdam had found a bundle of swastika-covered documents inside the cushion of an armchair he was repairing. They belonged to Dr. Robert Griesinger, a lawyer from Stuttgart, who joined the S.S. and worked at the Reich's Ministry of Economics and Labor in Nazi-occupied Prague during the war.
-
-
good book; strange voice...
- By S. Hall on 11-15-20
By: Daniel Lee
-
Hitler and the Habsburgs
- The Fuhrer's Vendetta Against the Austrian Royals
- By: James Longo
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As he rose to power, Hitler's hatred toward the Habsburgs and their diverse empire fixated on Franz Ferdinand's sons, who became outspoken critics and opponents of the Nazi party and its racist ideology. When Germany seized Austria in 1938, they were the first two Austrians arrested by the Gestapo, deported to Germany, and sent to Dachau. Within hours they went from palace to prison. The women in the family, including the Archduke's only daughter Princess Sophie Hohenberg, declared their own war on Hitler.
-
-
More of the Story
- By EJJ on 08-28-19
By: James Longo
What listeners say about The Unanswered Letter
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- MS
- 09-10-20
A must-read for any history buff
An impressive array of primary research yields this incredible story of two families intertwined by fate in a quest for truth, identity, and reconsolidation.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Julie
- 02-09-22
Amazing insight into experience of Viennese Jews
Couldn't put it down! Debunks the myths of Jews passively accepting their fate in Nazi occupied Vienna. Should be on reading lists for teens and up to teach how easily people who stand idly by are complicit in terrible atrocities.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Barbara K. Tinder
- 04-13-22
the unanswered letter
I found the story too long and although I listened to the entire story it was a struggle. I learned some history and became invested in the characters but it just drug on and on
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- SEC
- 09-12-20
Amazing! A must read!
This stunning story draws you in immediately. The author skillfully weaves a family’s personal story with the historical relevance making this an engaging and important read. The Unanswered Letter is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust. It is a story of hope, love and courage.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Helen Sherman Wade
- 09-30-20
Painful but a much needed read
Too much detail and I needed the family tree to follow. Aside from that... outstanding!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- J. Ayala
- 11-28-21
Great story, wish for better editing
Fairs’ story and Kate’s storytelling were quite lovely. I really, thoroughly enjoyed listening to this book on my walks. Later on, Leo’s story frustrated me (went a bit long), but nothing compared to how he must have felt. Kate has a fantastic voice, but the editing was not good and took away from the experience. There was a lot of dubbed in edits, one word, recorded and placed in over and over that clearly didn’t match the tone of the passage. Definitely worth a listen though. I walked away learning more than I went in with. And that’s a great thing!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Megan
- 07-11-22
Incredible!
This book is about so much more than an unanswered letter. The detail and history uncovered during the authors research brings much more detail to what happened to Jews during WWII. I listen almost exculsively to WWII history and I learned so much from this book. I highly recommend this.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Maria JH Rocheleau
- 07-01-22
Excellent!
Well written with great historical detail. The narrator did a wonderful job of keeping our interest. Highly recommend this account of the Holocaust concerning Austria in particular.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- SG
- 09-13-20
Captivating, inspiring, and relevant.
If you’re looking for a captivating page-turner this is it. Following the author’s first hand research as she unlocks this amazing story is riveting and inspiring. This is an incredibly important and relevant story.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jon
- 12-08-20
Heart wrenching but so good !
Made you feel the anxiety as if you were going through it yourself at the time!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful