In 1944, twelve-year-old Ditke, her parents, and her siblings are
forced out of their home by the Nazis and sent to a series of concentration camps, including
Auschwitz and Dachau. Miraculously surviving the war with one of her sisters,
but losing her parents and a brother, Ditke begins a tortuous journey--first
back to Hungary, where she knows she doesn't belong, and then to Israel. There,
she holds various jobs before she leaves with a dance troupe, touring Turkey,
Switzerland, and Italy. In Italy she finds a home, at last, and a small measure
of peace; there, too, she falls in love and marries.
Writing
as herself, Edith Bruck closes Lost Bread by addressing a letter to God expressing her rejection of hatred, her love for life, and her hope
never to lose her memory or ability to continue speaking for those who perished
in the Nazi concentration camps. After the book's publication in Italy, Pope
Francis visited Bruck and thanked her for bearing witness to the atrocities of
the Holocaust.
