The Unanswered Letter: One Holocaust Family's Desperate Plea for Help

by Faris Cassell

Overview

In 1939, as the Nazis closed in, Alfred Berger mailed a desperate letter to an American stranger who happened to share his last name. He and his wife, Viennese Jews, had found escape routes for their daughters. But now their money, connections, and emotional energy were nearly exhausted. Alfred begged the American recipient of the letter, “You are surely informed about the situation of all Jews in Central Europe.... By pure chance I got your address.... My daughter and her husband will go... to America.... Help us to follow our children.... It is our last and only hope....”

After languishing in a California attic for decades, Alfred’s letter ended up in the hands of Faris Cassell, a journalist who couldn’t rest until she discovered the ending of the story. Traveling across the United States as well as to Austria, the Czech Republic, Belarus, and Israel, she uncovered an extraordinary story of heart-wrenching loss and unforgettable love that endures to this day.

Did the Bergers’ desperate letter find a response? Did they—and their daughters—survive? Did they leave living descendants?

You will find the answers here.

A story that will move any reader, The Unanswered Letter is a poignant reminder that love and hope never die.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684511907
Publisher:	Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date:	06/08/2021
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	178,816
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

FARIS CASSELL, a journalist and writer, lives with her husband in Eugene, Oregon. She earned a B.A. in history from Mount Holyoke College and an M.S. in journalism from the University of Oregon. Her decades of research into Alfred and Hedwig Berger's story was supported by a Mount Holyoke Alumnae Scholarship and by the generous cooperation of the Berger family.

Table of Contents

The Letter xiv

Berger Family Trees xvii

Foreword xix

Introduction The Letter xxi

Part I

Chapter 1 Ordinary People 3

Chapter 2 The Search Begins 11

Chapter 3 Who Are You? 17

Chapter 4 We Meet 25

Chapter 5 Different Worlds 33

Chapter 6 Home 47

Chapter 7 The Vienna Room 57

Chapter 8 Celia's World 79

Chapter 9 The Cache of Letters 95

Chapter 10 Vienna Bound 101

Part II

Chapter 11 Gilded City 115

Chapter 12 To Schmalzhofgasse 125

Chapter 13 Turnings 139

Chapter 14 Alarm 147

Part III

Chapter 15 Anschluss 157

Chapter 16 The Violence Worsens 169

Chapter 17 Escape 181

Chapter 18 Roundup 195

Chapter 19 Kristallnacht 211

Chapter 20 Exit 223

Chapter 21 "Dear Madam" 239

Part IV

Chapter 22 Hope 255

Chapter 23 War 271

Chapter 24 France-America-Vienna 289

Chapter 25 Distance 301

Chapter 26 War Fever 313

Chapter 27 Precarious 327

Chapter 28 Bitter 343

Chapter 29 A Lifeline Severed 365

Part V

Chapter 30 Mean Streets 387

Chapter 31 Vienna-Minsk 399

Part VI

Chapter 32 Moments 407

Chapter 33 The Present 417

Epilogue 427

Acknowledgments 433

Reader's Guide 439

Editorial Reviews

"The author vividly portrays a rich culture’s unspeakably cruel destruction...the story is a historical treasure." -Kirkus Reviews

"It’s possible that The Unanswered Letter, which brings a far more global perspective to the Holocaust than do most survivors’ memoirs, will typify the new scholarship" -San Diego Jewish World

"Through her determined investigation, Cassell illuminates a hitherto unknown chapter of the Holocaust: the heart-stopping story of Alfred and Hedwig Berger, 'a blind salesman of socks and a homemaker with a song in her heart.'" -The National Book Review

From the Publisher

08/14/2020

Twenty years ago, a letter arrived at journalist Cassell's home. Its author, writing some 60 years earlier, spoke with such urgency and humanity, the journalist could not avoid its call. In 1939, Alfred Berger launched a desperate plea from Vienna to an unknown Berger in California; the letter was a last hope for sponsorship and potential immigration to the United States in order to escape Nazi persecution. Driven to find what became of the Viennese Berger family, Cassell embarked on a wrenching and achingly poignant story of resiliency, hope, and the strength of family up against unthinkable horror. What results is an expertly researched and intimately fleshed-out contextualization detailing not only the incremental progression of how evil unfolds, but how individuals and families attempt to cope amid such catastrophic events. Cassell takes care to retain the letter's original conversation and tone, and the wavering hope and despair among this devastating historical backdrop. VERDICT A crushing but nonetheless important read chronicling firsthand perspectives and experiences of a lost family miraculously brought to life. Highly recommended as a respectfully told, exhaustively researched, and ceaselessly alarming call to attention.—Benjamin Malczewski, Toledo Lucas Cty. P.L.

Library Journal

2020-07-07
A moving account of the search for two Holocaust victims.

In 2000, journalist Cassell’s husband, a physician, brought home a letter given to him by an elderly patient and dated Aug. 7, 1939. The return address was in Vienna, then under Nazi rule. The letter began, “You are surely informed about the situation of all Jews in Central Europe,” and went on to beg the recipient to enable him and his wife to immigrate by filing an official “affidavit of support.” This was essential because U.S. policy aggressively discouraged Jewish refugees. Berger was the name of both sender and recipient, but the American Bergers were not Jewish nor related to the sender; apparently, the writer had found the name by accident. Cassell’s husband’s patient, she learned, had received the letter from an aunt and uncle after their death, but they had not answered it. Yielding to her journalistic instincts, the author proceeded to track down the story of the letter writer, a task that required a decade of research and travel. Thanks to the German obsession with paperwork, archives and government offices turned up a trove of information about Albert and Hedwig Berger and their large extended family whose descendants, now scattered to North and South America and Israel, delivered their letters and photographs. Many joined Cassell in Vienna to visit their ancestral homes as she completed her research. Though the narrative contains more information on an undistinguished Viennese couple than most readers want to know, the author vividly portrays a rich culture’s unspeakably cruel destruction. Long settled in Vienna, the Bergers were stunned at the sudden Nazi takeover. Greeting it enthusiastically, Austrians embraced German anti-Semitic law. Jews were repeatedly assaulted, robbed, taxed, and fined, and most lost their jobs. Cassell records the painful details as most tried to emigrate. Many succeeded, but not the Bergers; Albert died in an accident in 1942, and Hedwig was deported and killed.

Though often grim, the story is a historical treasure.

Kirkus Reviews