A Time to Speak

People ask if God protected me. Does that mean He didn't protect those who died? I'm totally unable to answer that question. It was often a matter of timing: a fortnight later, I would not have been alive.' It is March 1939. German troops enter Prague and for Czech Jews the terror begins. This is the story of one of the survivors. Hailed as one of the most important testimonies in recent years, the latest edition of A Time To Speak by Helen Lewis is published with a new foreword by one of Ireland's greatest poets, Michael Longley. Originally published in 1992, this international best-seller is a remarkable true story with two acts; a tragic tale of unimaginable horrors experienced by Helen as a young Jewish woman incarcerated in the German concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and a story of survival as Helen went on to carve out an extraordinary career in modern dance in her adopted home city of Belfast. Helen was awarded an honorary doctorate from The University of Ulster... 15 March 1939: German troops enter Prague and for Czechoslovakian Jews the terror begins. This is the story of one of the survivors. 'It is difficult to categorise this book. I suppose you could say it is an autobiography and leave it at that, yes; but it is slightly other than that. It is an autobiography with the shape and rhythms of a novel, the orderliness of a novel, the heartbeat of a novel. All the baggage of the novelist is here - love and loss, friendship and betrayal, terror and humour, joy and despair, good and evil, death and survival - but there is no fiction, none of the novelist's attention-seeking tricks, nothing is manipulated as a novelist would manipulate, the pattern is inherent not imposed. Helen Lewis does not speculate, she never invents; there is only Truth, witnessed Truth. She tells her story with awesome integrity and in her hands it becomes more than just her story, it becomes history ‘Helen Lewis survived the greatest nightmare ever dreamed by man. Her story is appalling, mesmerising, and one reads with increasing gratitude for her clarity, honesty and courage.’ Ian McEwanHelen Lewis, a young student of dance in Prague at the outbreak of WW2 was herded, like Madeleine Albright, into the Terezin ghetto, then shipped to Auschwitz, in 1942. Separated from her family, she struggled to survive amidst the carnage of The Final Solution. How she did so, and what she did in order to survive, is a gripping story, told with wit, candour, and controlled anger.Widely praised by many, including Jennifer Johnston, Michael Longley, and the Guardian, and hailed by the Independent for its ‘elegiac simplicity and lucidity’, A Time to Speak is an elegant memoir of the Holocaust, humbling in its freedom from bitterness, which will leave no reader unmoved.Originally published: Belfast: Blackstaff, 1992. 'Helen Lewis survived the greatest nightmare ever dreamed by man. Her story is appalling, mesmerising, and one reads with increasing gratitude for her clarity, honesty and courage.' Ian McEwan Helen Lewis, a young student of dance in Prague at the outbreak of WW2 was herded, like Madeleine Albright, into the Terezin ghetto, then shipped to Auschwitz, in 1942. Separated from her family, she struggled to survive amidst the carnage of The Final Solution. How she did so, and what she did in order to survive, is a gripping story, told with wit, candour, and controlled anger. Widely praised by many, including Jennifer Johnston, Michael Longley, and the Guardian, and hailed by the Independent for its 'elegiac simplicity and lucidity', A Time to Speak is an elegant memoir of the Holocaust, humbling in its freedom from bitterness, which will leave no reader unmoved. Praised by Ian McEwan, Michael Longley, the Guardian and many others, A Time to Speak tells the story of Helen Lewis, shipped from Prague to Auschwitz at the start of WW2 as part of the Final Solution, and her struggle to survive the Holocaust. As a young child, my only regret was that I had no little brother or sister to play with and therefore had to find my playmates outside my home.