Cover image for Soudain, les ténèbres / Leslie Meisels ; with a short memoir by his wife, Eva Meisels ; and an introduction by Anna Porter.
Soudain, les ténèbres / Leslie Meisels ; with a short memoir by his wife, Eva Meisels ; and an introduction by Anna Porter.
TITLE:
Soudain, les ténèbres / Leslie Meisels ; with a short memoir by his wife, Eva Meisels ; and an introduction by Anna Porter.
Translated Title:
Suddenly the shadow fell.
Publication Date:
2015
Publication Information:
Toronto : Azrieli Foundation,
Physical Description:
xxix, 146 pages : ill., maps, portraits
Additional Contributors:

Bibliography Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:
When Leslie Meisels insisted that his mother and two brothers join a transport going who knows where, all he knew was that they had to get out of the terrible holding facility in Debrecen, Hungary. The guards had called for families with four children; they were only three. That decision took them not to a death camp but to forced labour in the Austrian countryside, included in the roughly 20,000 "exchange Jews" whose lives had been bartered for gold, diamonds, and cash in a secret deal between Rudolf Kastner and Adolf Eichmann. As Kastner Jews they were then sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they were kept "on ice" -- allowed to stay together and treated somewhat better than the other prisioners. The transport to Switzerland never materialized; the SS abanded their train to Theresienstadt in April 1945 and they were liberated by the US army. Added to his memoir is a short account by his wife, Eva, who survived the Nazi occupation of Budapest as a five-year-old with the assistance of Raoul Wallenberg.
Language:
French
ISBN:
9781897470596