Zdena berger biography of michael douglas

Elie Wiesel has said that following his liberation from Buchenwald in , a decade of self-imposed silence passed before he was able to write anything about what he had lived through. Similarly, Zdena Berger, survivor of Terezin, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, waited 10 years to begin to tell her own story. It was only upon her arrival in America in that she found herself compelled to give words to what had previously been unspeakable.

Not to deny it, but not to be defined by my concentration camp experience. Not to make use of it.

Zdena berger biography of michael douglas: John Berger was born

Although Berger had made her peace with this secondary silence, in Paris Press reissued the book. A quote on the back cover of the new edition from no less a luminary than author Ernest J. I met with Berger on a perfect summer afternoon at her home in California on the Sonoma coast. We drank chamomile tea and talked about her work, her life and the mysterious complexities of history and memory.

Slender and vivid at 84, she has retired to Sonoma with her husband and their two cats, surrounded by books and artwork. Outside the windows, filtered sunlight streamed through branches; inside, there was utter tranquillity.