海角大神

Seventy years have passed since Marceline Loridan-Ivens was liberated from Theresienstadt after nearly two years in the Nazi death camps. Yet her experience remains as raw as ever 鈥� which is part of the point of this searing, profoundly moving memoir, But You Did Not Come Back.

Loridan-Ivens was rounded up at age 15 along with her father, Solomon Rozenberg, from their chateau in southern France. They were deported together to Birkenau-Auschwitz, in Poland, the country whose anti-Semitism Rozenberg had fled as a young man. 鈥淵ou might come back, because you鈥檙e young,鈥� she remembers her father telling her, 鈥渂ut I will not come back.鈥�

He was, alas, right. Loridan-Ivens鈥檚 memoir, written all these decades later, takes the form of a heartbroken love letter to the father she never stopped missing.

Why has she written this now?聽 Because even before this year鈥檚 terrorist attacks in Paris,聽 she was alarmed and dismayed by the resurgence of anti-Semitism. 聽鈥淚 see policemen outside of synagogues but I do not want to be someone who needs protection,鈥� she declares.聽 But: 鈥淚鈥檓 often afraid because I know what鈥檚 happening.鈥澛�

She assures her father that once she found her bearings after liberation, she鈥檚 been 鈥渜uite a cheerful person, you know, in spite of what happened to us.聽 We were happy in our own way, as a revenge against sadness.鈥� She describes her satisfying work, as an activist for Algerian rights and making films that championed others鈥� freedom聽 鈥� much of it with her second husband, documentarian Joris Ivens, who was her father鈥檚 contemporary.

鈥淚鈥檓 slowing down,鈥� she writes, 鈥淎nd so I think about you.鈥�

Her mind travels back to the note that her father incredibly, at great risk, managed to smuggle to her in Birkenau, three kilometers from his cell block in Auschwitz.聽 She鈥檚 unable to recall its exact words, but remembers that it began, 鈥淢y darling little girl,鈥� and was signed with his Yiddish name, Shlo茂me.聽 鈥淭hat may seem unimportant today,鈥� she writes, 鈥渂ut that piece of paper, folded in four, your writing, the steps of the man walking from you to me, proved that we still existed.鈥�

She assumes his note begged her to hold on, to live. But 鈥淭hinking about it too much meant letting in the loss, it made me vulnerable.鈥�

She remembers the day they passed each other when her work detail was digging ditches for a new crematorium.聽 They broke ranks and fell into each other鈥檚 arms, for which she was severely beaten.聽 When she came to, 鈥淚 found a tomato and an onion in my hand that you鈥檇 secretly slipped to me 鈥� your lunch, I鈥檓 sure.鈥澛�

When their work details passed each other the next day, 鈥渨e didn鈥檛 dare move.鈥澛�

Even at a remove of seven decades and distilled to its bare minimum, Loridan-Ivens鈥檚 account is devastating.聽 She writes of 鈥渢he usual barbarity: hunger, beatings, sickness, the cold,鈥� and evokes the unforgettable 鈥渟tench of burnt flesh.鈥�

She fills her father in on what he didn鈥檛 live to experience: the desolation of repatriation 鈥� one of 2500 of 76,500 French Jews sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau who came back. 鈥淚 loved you so much that I was happy to be deported with you,鈥� she writes. But she was not prepared to live without him, and to live among people who didn鈥檛 understand what she鈥檇 been through -- including her mother. 聽(It鈥檚 unclear how her mother and siblings avoided deportation.)

She wishes her father had survived so 鈥渨e could have divided our memories in two.鈥� She reports that their family fell apart: her mother remarried in 1948, to a man who鈥檇 lost his wife and five children in the camps.聽 Two siblings committed suicide.聽 She herself tried twice, noting the irony after having done everything she could to stay alive in the camps.聽 鈥淲hy was I incapable of living once I鈥檇 returned to the world? 聽It was like a blinding light after months in darkness, it was too intense.鈥�

She found purpose and love when she met Ivens in 1962. They made films about Algeria, Vietnam, China. 鈥淚 thought that by liberating other people, whether they were Algerian, Vietnamese, or Chinese, the Jewish problem would be solved at the same time.聽 It was a terrible mistake, as the future proved, but I firmly believed it then.鈥�

Now, deeply disillusioned, Loridan-Ivens finds the world 鈥渁 hideous medley of communities and religions pushed to the extreme.鈥� Anti-Semitism, she despairs, is 鈥渁n eternal given 鈥� too deeply rooted in the world鈥� to disappear.

Readers do not have to agree with Loridan-Ivens to appreciate the import of her work. Smoothly translated by Sandra Smith (who also translated Ir猫ne N茅mirovsky鈥檚 "Suite Fran莽aise"), "But You Did Not Come Back" is a beautiful testimony to filial love that sounds a powerful, dire alarm. It is also a reminder that forgetting atrocity isn鈥檛 an option.聽

Heller McAlpin reviews books regularly for NPR.org, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and 海角大神.