Thoth distribution@thoth.pub Google 20250411T030802

urn:uuid:ebc98c6e-bec5-4869-b5c9-c1162fd00710 03 15 9781800649484 00 EB E101 10 01 01 No Life Without You Refugee Love Letters from the 1930s 1 A01 Franklin Felsenstein Franklin Felsenstein (aka Frank Felsenstein) is the only son of Maurice (“Mope”) and Vera Felsenstein. He is the Reed D. Voran Honors Distinguished Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Ball State University in Indiana. Before that, he was Reader in Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of Leeds in England. He has also held appointments at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, Vanderbilt University, Yeshiva College, and Drew University. His publications include Anti-Semitic Stereotypes: A Paradigm of Otherness in English Popular Culture (1995), English Trader, Indian Maid: Representing Gender, Race, and Slavery in the New World (1999), and (with James J. Connolly) What Middletown Read: Print Culture in an American Small City (2015). He has edited works by Tobias Smollett (Travels through France and Italy), Peter Aram (A Practical Treatise of Flowers), and John Thelwall (Incle and Yarico). He and his family moved to the United States in 1998. He and his wife now live in Chicago. 2 A24 Rachel Pistol Rachel Pistol is a historian, author, and leading authority on World War II refugees from Nazi oppression and internment during the Second World War. She joined the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London in 2018 to work on the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI), where she is part of the Project Management Board. Rachel is the National Coordinator of the UK Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI-UK), for which she is based at the Parkes Institute at the University of Southampton. She is also Historical Advisor to World Jewish Relief, formerly the Central British Fund, the charity which helped German and Austrian refugees escape to the UK including the Kindertransport and Kitchener Camp rescues. 01 eng 00 644 03 23 Biography 04 DS134.4 10 HIS022000 12 JFSR1 23 Personal correspondence 23 European Studies: German Studies 10 HIS027100 12 JPFQ 23 Refugees 23 History 12 JFFD 10 POL042030 23 World War 2 23 1930s Germany 12 BJ 10 LCO011000 12 BGH 10 BIO037000 23 Jewish persecution 10 BIO026000 23 England 10 SOC066000 01 06 03 00 The letters and journals of Ernst Moritz and Vera Hirsch Felsenstein, two German Jewish refugees caught in the tumultuous years leading to the Second World War, form the core of this book. Abridged in English from the original German, the correspondence and diaries have been expertly compiled and annotated by their only son who preserves his parents’ love story in their own words. Their letters, written from Germany, England, Russia, and Palestine capture their desperate efforts to save themselves and their family, friends and businesses from the fascist tyranny. The book begins by contextualizing the early lives of Moritz and Vera. Because the letters are written to each other almost daily, they are incredibly immediate. Most centrally, the letters recount an astonishing love story, sensual in its intimate detail, and full of dramatic pathos in revealing the anxieties of being apart as the Nazi threat unfolds and broadens. It is told through the voices of two exceptionally articulate letter writers. This volume offers insights into the moral and psychological dilemmas faced by German Jews as a targeted community. It affords a unique appreciation of the impact of historical and socio-political upheavals on the lives of a persecuted minority. A scholarly introduction by Rachel Pistol draws out the main themes raised by this correspondence, observing its relevance to contemporary debates about migration and political authority. 04 00 About the Editor Illustrations Preface and Acknowledgements Refugees: A Contextual Introduction by Rachel Pistol PART 1: THEN One: Familien Hirsch Two: Mainly Mope Three: Victoriaschule Four: “And So What?” Five: Heising Six: Of Books And Arts (1): Max Schwimmer Seven: Of Books And Arts (2): Thomas Mann Eight: “I Will Give Up Medicine!!!!!” Nine: Under The Swastika Ten: “Did I Do the Right Thing?” Eleven: Zionism Twelve: Gretel Thirteen: Marks and Mitja PART 2: NOW Fourteen: “I Stole a Kiss From You at the Train Station” Fifteen: Mope in Palestine Sixteen: Palestine or Vera? Seventeen: Dover Eighteen: “Happy and Sad at the Same Time” Nineteen: Letters From a Wretched Coffee House Sitter Twenty: “More of a Stranger Here Now” Twenty-one: “The Letter Writing Last Guest” Twenty-two: “Human Beings Are Good!” Twenty-three: “Every Turn of the Wheel” Twenty-four: “I Will Come to London Directly” Twenty-five: “The Alpha and Omega of My Life” Twenty-six: “This Ever So Long Time of Insatiable Longing” Twenty-seven: “10,108 white foxes” Twenty-eight: Visas, Visas, Visas Twenty-nine: “Today, For the First Time in My Life, I Wished I Were a Man!” Thirty: “The Little Fruit That Fell From the Tree” Thirty-one: “No Life Without You” Thirty-two: Afterword Glossary of Names Select Bibliography Index Open Book Publishers 01 Open Book Publishers 04 01 20240325 02 WORLD 06 15 9781800649453 06 15 9781800649460 06 15 9781800649477 06 15 9781800649514 06 15 9781800649484 WORLD 09 Open Book Publishers 20 02 5.99 GBP WORLD