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A Love Story in Ravensbrück
by Gwen Strauss
A profoundly moving celebration of love under the darkest of circumstances
From the moment they met in 1940 in Ravensbrück concentration camp, Milena Jesenska and Margarete Buber-Neumann were inseparable. Czech Milena was Kafka's first translator and epistolary lover, and a journalist opposed to fascism. A non-conformist, bi-sexual feminist, she was way ahead of her time. With the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, her home became a central meeting place for Jewish refugees. German Margarete, born to a middle-class family, married the son of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. But soon swept up in the fervor of the Bolshevik Revolution, she met her second partner, the Communist Heinz Neumann. Called to Moscow for his "political deviations," he fell victim to Stalin's purges while Margarete was exiled to the hell of the Soviet gulag. Two years later, traded by Stalin to Hitler, she ended up outside Berlin in Ravensbrück, the only concentration camp built for women.
Milena and Margarete loved each other at the risk of their lives. But in the post-war survivors' accounts, lesbians were stigmatized, and survivors kept silent. This book explores those silences, and finally celebrates two strong women who never gave up and continue to inspire. As Margaret wrote: "I was thankful for having been sent to Ravensbrück, because it was there I met Milena."
"[A] striking biography...It's a propulsive recounting of a powerful love." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[A]n essential rediscovery...[Strauss's] work is as alert to the tenderness of their connection as to the immense evil of their surroundings. Queer history and Holocaust history converge in this remarkable account." —Kirkus Reviews
"Strauss draws us skillfully into the world of the prison camp at Ravensbrück, in the darkest years of the 20th century. Milena and Margarete remind us that, amidst depravity and cruelty, the passionate friendship of women can be its own act of powerful resistance." ―Tilar Mazzeo, bestselling and award-winning author of Irene's Children and Sisters in Resistance
"Riveting, mesmerizing important work.... The details and perspectives of women prisoners at Ravensbruck concentration camp are juxtaposed to these extraordinary individuals' proximity to the lives of the Martin Buber family and to Franz Kafka, reminding us that the lack of full autonomy for even free-thinking bourgeois women relegated them to secondary status in both freedom and enslavement. A magnificent work of contextualization that opens new doors of understanding." ―Sarah Schulman, Lambda Literary Award winner, author of Let the Record Show
This information about Milena and Margarete was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Gwen Strauss is the author of The Nine and a collection of poetry, Trail of Stones. Her poems, short stories and essays have appeared in numerous journals including The New Republic, London Sunday Times, New England Review, and Kenyon Review. She was born and spent her early years in Haiti. Strauss lives in Southern France, where she is the Executive Director of the Dora Maar Cultural Center.
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