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Marta dreamed of an extraordinary life: she wanted to conquer the world, she wanted to write. But the Second World War and Holocaust destroyed everything. Marta's Notebooks tells the story of the one thing Marta wrote, decades after the war, when she was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward and suffering from deep depression. A close relationship developed between Marta and her psychiatrist, leading her to write her story: her poignant memoir, an intimate and historical document, is a testimony to a woman’s life and a place that was destroyed.
Marta’s Notebooks brings together three components: an authentic memoir written by Marta Wollner, a Holocaust survivor; a literary, fictive biography based on this diary; and an auto-fiction novella, the confession of her daughter reflecting on the profound impact of her mother’s trauma on her own life. Providing a unique approach to telling a survival story, Marta's Notebooks is a testament to the complex wounds trauma leaves behind.
"Marta's Notebooks is not your usual Holocaust story. It is a combination of fact and fiction, based on the story of the author's mother, Marta Kraus, who survived Auschwitz as a young girl. But it is not solely about the horrors that she endured. It is about the life that she and others led before, during, and after the war and what those experiences did to the survivors. Marta indeed survives the war, marries a childhood friend, and begins to raise a family, but a chance meeting with a former Kapo causes her to collapse and become hospitalized. The psychiatrist treating her encourages her to write her story, with the catharsis enabling her to heal. The second part of the book is composed of Marta's actual writings, describing her life, and the volume concludes with the end of Marta's story, leaving the reader to wonder what parts of the fiction may be based on fact. A fascinating read!”
— Prof. Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz, Director, Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research, Bar-Ilan University
Note to Reader
Part One: Marta
Winter
Spring
Summer
End of Summer
Part Two: The Notebooks
Šurany, Family, Childhood
Student
Persecuted
Deportation
Forced Labor
Return
Summer ’45
Part Three: Dr. Neuman
Part Four: Naomi