Book launch with editor Saskia Goldschmidt to mark the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of National Socialism
In November 1943, Renata Laqueur (1919-2011) and her husband Paul Goldschmidt were arrested in Amsterdam and deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1944. Here Renata began to keep a diary. In December 1944, she cancelled her notes as she lacked the strength to write. After her Liberation in April 1945, she returned to the Netherlands, where she edited and added to her notes. The diary, which was first published in Dutch in 1965, is a valuable and unique contemporary document that reflects the suffering of millions of people. Unsentimental and unsparing, Renata Laqueur describes the experiences of violence and the gruelling living conditions in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
The publisher Saskia Goldschmidt, daughter of Renata Laqueur's first husband Paul Goldschmidt, presents the book in conversation with her agent Willem Bisseling, co-owner of the literary agency Sebes Bisseling Kleuver. Dr Akim Jah, Head of the Research and Documentation Department at the Bergen-Belsen Memorial, and Bernd Horstmann, historian in the Research and Documentation Department at the Bergen-Belsen Memorial, will welcome the guests and give a historical introduction. The welcome and introduction will be held in German, the discussion with the editor will be held in English.