A Time to Speak by Helen Lewis

A Time to Speak by Helen Lewis

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.

Only the dead know the whole truth and some of those witnesses who survived have taken upon themselves the painful task of speaking for them… This book is the testimony of a woman who has survived the unsurvivable

-- Jennifer Johnston

The world needs testimonies like Helen Lewis's... a book of utmost distinction.

-- Michael Longley

Her writing does not need any embellishment or fancy prose; she simply describes scenes as close to hell on earth as it is surely possible to be.

harrowing but uplifting

so much more than a mere memoir

In 117 staggering pages, A Time to Speak is everything a book can and should hope to be.

Helen Lewis was born in 1916 in Trutnov in Czechoslovakia. She completed her grammar school education, then successfully auditioned for a place at Milca Mayerova's School of Dance in Prague. While studying for her diploma, she also began a course in Philosophy at the German University. She married in 1938, and in 1942, together with her husband Paul, she was deported to Terezín, the Jewish ghetto sixty kilometres north of Prague, and then in May 1944 to Auschwitz, where they were separated. After the liberation she returned to Prague to learn that her husband had not survived. In 1947 she married Harry Lewis, an old friend who had escaped to Belfast just before the start of the war, and settled there with him the same year. After the birth of their two sons, she became involved in dance again, choreographing for theatre and opera. Her teaching eventually led to the foundation of the Belfast Modem Dance Group, which introduced modern contemporary dance to Northern Ireland. A Time to Speak was published in 1992 and brought her wider recognition as a writer, broadcaster and speaker. She often talked about her experiences to community groups and in schools, a responsibility she took particularly seriously. Her contribution to the life of Northern Ireland was recognized by the award of honorary doctorates by The University of Ulster (1993) and The Queen’s University, Belfast (1996) and by her appointment as MBE in 2000. She died on 31 December 2009.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780856408557
ISBN 10	0856408557
Title	A Time to Speak
Author	Helen Lewis
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Colourpoint Creative Ltd
Year published	2010-10-01
Number of pages	128
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.