Book Review: The Violinist of Auschwitz

The Violinist of Auschwitz

by Jean-Jacques Felstein

Pub Date 30 Nov 2021

Pen & Sword, Pen & Sword History

Biographies & Memoirs | History | Nonfiction (Adult)

I am reviewing a copy of The Violinist of Auschwitz through Pen and Sword History and Netgalley:

Elsa was arrested in 1943 and deported to Auschwitz, Elsa survived because she joined the women’s orchestra. But Elsa kept her story a secret, even from her own family. Indeed, her son would only discover what had happened to his mother many years later, after gradually unearthing her unbelievable story following her premature death, without ever having revealed her secret to anyone.

Jean-Jacques Felstein was determined to reconstruct Elsa’s life in Birkenau, and would go in search of other orchestra survivors in Germany, Belgium, Poland, Israel and the United States. In reconstructing his Mother’s life in Auschwitz the recollections of Hélène, first violin, Violette, third violin, Anita, a cellist, and other musicians, allowed him to rediscover his 20-year-old mother, lost in the heart of hell.

The story unfolds in two intersecting stages: one, contemporary, is that of the investigation, the other is that of Auschwitz and its unimaginable daily…