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Written as an introspective, lyrical letter to her missing husband, the novel begins one night in January 1943, when Roszy’s husband Moritz, a member of the French Resistance, is hauled away by the Gestapo in Marseilles. Roszy is left alone and seven months pregnant with their two sons, Erwin (the author, Yitzchak Mayer) and Jackie. Unable to locate her husband, who later will die in Auschwitz, Roszy decides to escape from Nazi-occupied France to Switzerland. They board a train to Saint-Claude, on the Swiss border, carrying false French documents and, in Roszy’s bag, diamonds embedded in a bar of laundry soap. After an exhausting trek through the snow, the three sneak across the border into Switzerland, but their difficulties are not over. Mayer cinematically recounts the details of the locations, the myriad characters, and the dialogue with care and accuracy. Silent Letter is a rare book that recounts an unforgettable chapter of history, one which has powerful contemporary relevance as it confronts the saga of desperation, of people on the run, trying to escape from danger and certain death, driven by hope of finding at a safe place.
