‘Oh my treasure, do you know how I long for the smell of a wood, for the smell of fresh air?’
So wrote Marie Bader from her tiny flat in the Karlín district of Prague on 25 September 1941. Her letter was one of 154 written between the autumn of 1940 and April 1942.
Their recipient was Ernst Löwy, Marie’s second cousin, with whom an intense love affair was developing, albeit one separated by hundreds of miles. Ernst was living in similarly restricted circumstances, but in the very different environment of Thessaloniki in northern Greece.
Ernst and Marie had known each other from childhood, but it was only with the deaths of both their spouses that a mutual strong attraction – noticed previously and frowned upon by their respective families – was finally able to develop and thrive.
Both were severely restricted in their freedom of movement, and, though willing to risk the little stability each enjoyed, were unable to achieve the reunion and stable life together that both hoped for, so that the love affair developed in words on paper.
This volume of letters gives an insight not just into this story of late-flowering desire – Marie was fifty-four at the time the letters begin – but also into the anxiety and uncertainty felt by Jewish people at that time, when families were so often dispersed to different parts of the world and the future for those still in Europe was so unsure.
The correspondence has a special connection with the Imperial War Museum, since Jeremy Ottevanger, Marie Bader’s great-grandson, who discovered the letters in his parents’ attic, is a close colleague. It was my privilege to meet with Jeremy’s parents, Kate and Tim, to discuss the book in its early stages, and it was a special pleasure to see the project grow from an idea to a full publication.
Kate Ottevanger undertook the considerable task of translating and editing the letters, and writing a highly informative introduction. It cannot have been easy to work out the details of a complex set of family relationships, and how the shifting events of the Second World War impacted on all of Marie’s relatives and acquaintances, but this Kate Ottevanger has achieved with consummate skill. Her Afterword – in which she describes further groups of letters to and from her grandmother and probes the impact that the unravelling of her grandmother’s last two years has had on her and her family – is exceptional for its depth and insight into our understanding of exile, loss and identity.
In Jan Láníček, moreover, Kate found a co-editor of considerable ability who, as well as adding a valuable historical perspective, has provided a well-researched post-script, explaining the likely fate of Marie Bader. To work on a project of this kind must have been a challenge and to have the perspective of a well-networked expert from the country of Marie Bader’s birth was fortunate indeed.
I know from my past work with the Holocaust Exhibition here, how rare it is for letters to survive from that period – but in particular full sets of correspondence. This volume will be of value to historians, scholars of literature and the general reader, for the detail it provides on wartime Jewish life in Prague, in particular how different elements in the population responded to the Jews under threat, and for the particular optimism, thoughtfulness and insight of one woman who endured that terrible time.
Suzanne Bardgett
Head of Research and Academic Partnerships
Imperial War Museum, London