My Wounded Heart: The Life of Lilli Jahn, 1900- 1944

In the letters and in Martin Doerry’s superb commentary, we see the deterioration of a whole country through the eyes of an ordinary family driven asunder by pressure from the Nazi regime. We see Lilli’s initial optimism and love of her husband begin to crack. We see her trying to support and run the family home from Breitenau camp, but relying totally on her twelve-year-old daughter, Ilse. And perhaps most moving of all, we see Ilse’s heroic attempts to meet her mother, even though it means going into the labour camp itself, and Lilli’s courage in the face of her inevitable end.