Hil­da Stern man­aged to write poet­ry and prose in the Lódz Ghet­to and even in the Auschwitz death camp. Fol­low­ing this she was forced to go on a death march to a camp in Berlin, from which she was lib­er­at­ed by Amer­i­can sol­diers after three weeks. Dur­ing her year in an Aus­tri­an DP camp, Stern rewrote much of her lost work and com­posed more express­ing what it was like to be a dis­placed per­son. Years lat­er, after her death, her hus­band dis­cov­ered the writ­ings. Trans­lat­ed into Eng­lish, and with a nar­ra­tive recov­ered from record­ed inter­views she made with sto­ry-teller Gail Rosen, it is a book that fas­ci­nates. How she man­aged to cre­ate works of beau­ty and pathos from such heart­break is genius; her sto­ries and record­ed inter­views have the rare qual­i­ty of being lyri­cal even when what they are describ­ing is trag­ic.