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Waiting for Leah
"Leah" is set in Theresienstadt, the ghetto created by the Nazis in northern Bohemia as a staging post for the transport of Jews to Poland. The time is September 1944; the war is going badly for the Germans, and they are in a hurry to complete their "Final Solution". Rumours are rife among the Jews in the ghetto, even though nothing definite is known of the Nazis' intentions, or perhaps it is deliberately not believed. The heroine of the novel, Leah, an eighteen year old girl from Holland, has, like most of those around her, given up living in accordance with her beliefs. The narrator is a lad of seventeen, likewise still relatively unaffected by the moral disinteragration around him. By chance, he encounters Vili Field, a pre-ward acquaintence who had seduced his young girlfriend. Vili takes the narrator to the tiny attic he shares with Leah. Thus begins an erotic entanglement that ends with the narrator and Vili being sent to their deaths in the East. Leah travels with them, but in a different part of the train. Conditions on this journey are unspeakable; Lustig evokes them memorably in this novel about impossible in appalling circumstances.
- GenresFiction
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
About the author
Arnošt Lustig
71 books77 followersArnošt Lustig (born 21 December 1926 in Prague) is a renowned Czech Jewish author of novels, short stories, plays, and screenplays whose works have often involved the Holocaust.
As a Jewish boy in Czechoslovakia during World War II, he was sent in 1942 to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, from where he was later transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, followed by time in the Buchenwald concentration camp. In 1945, he escaped from a train carrying him to the Dachau concentration camp when the engine was mistakenly destroyed by an American fighter-bomber. He returned to Prague in time to take part in the May 1945 anti-Nazi uprising.
After the war, he studied journalism at Charles University in Prague and then worked for a number of years at Radio Prague. He worked as a journalist in Israel at the time of its War of Independence where he met his future wife, who at the time was a volunteer with the Haganah. He was one of the major critics of the Communist regime in June 1967 at the 4th Writers Conference, and gave up his membership in the Communist Party after the 1967 Middle East war, to protest his government's breaking of relations with Israel. However, following the Soviet-led invasion that ended the Prague Spring in 1968, he left the country, first to Israel, then Yugoslavia and later in 1970 to the United States. After the fall of eastern European communism in 1989, he divided his time between Prague and Washington DC, where he continued to teach at the American University. After his retirement from the American University in 2003, he became a full-time resident of Prague. He was given an apartment in the Prague Castle by then President Václav Havel and honored for his contributions to Czech culture on his 80th birthday in 2006. In 2008, Lustig became the eighth recipient of the Franz Kafka Prize. [1]
Lustig is married to the former Vera Weislitzová (1927), daughter of a furniture maker from Ostrava who was also imprisoned in the Terezín concentration camp. Unlike her parents, she was not deported to Auschwitz. She wrote of her family's fate during the Holocaust in the collection of poems entitled "Daughter of Olga and Leo." They have two children, Josef (1950) and Eva (1956).
His most renowned books are A Prayer For Katerina Horowitzowa (published and nominated for a National book award in 1974), Dita Saxová (1979), Night and Hope (1985), and Lovely Green Eyes (2004). Dita Saxová and Night and Hope have been filmed.
As a Jewish boy in Czechoslovakia during World War II, he was sent in 1942 to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, from where he was later transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, followed by time in the Buchenwald concentration camp. In 1945, he escaped from a train carrying him to the Dachau concentration camp when the engine was mistakenly destroyed by an American fighter-bomber. He returned to Prague in time to take part in the May 1945 anti-Nazi uprising.
After the war, he studied journalism at Charles University in Prague and then worked for a number of years at Radio Prague. He worked as a journalist in Israel at the time of its War of Independence where he met his future wife, who at the time was a volunteer with the Haganah. He was one of the major critics of the Communist regime in June 1967 at the 4th Writers Conference, and gave up his membership in the Communist Party after the 1967 Middle East war, to protest his government's breaking of relations with Israel. However, following the Soviet-led invasion that ended the Prague Spring in 1968, he left the country, first to Israel, then Yugoslavia and later in 1970 to the United States. After the fall of eastern European communism in 1989, he divided his time between Prague and Washington DC, where he continued to teach at the American University. After his retirement from the American University in 2003, he became a full-time resident of Prague. He was given an apartment in the Prague Castle by then President Václav Havel and honored for his contributions to Czech culture on his 80th birthday in 2006. In 2008, Lustig became the eighth recipient of the Franz Kafka Prize. [1]
Lustig is married to the former Vera Weislitzová (1927), daughter of a furniture maker from Ostrava who was also imprisoned in the Terezín concentration camp. Unlike her parents, she was not deported to Auschwitz. She wrote of her family's fate during the Holocaust in the collection of poems entitled "Daughter of Olga and Leo." They have two children, Josef (1950) and Eva (1956).
His most renowned books are A Prayer For Katerina Horowitzowa (published and nominated for a National book award in 1974), Dita Saxová (1979), Night and Hope (1985), and Lovely Green Eyes (2004). Dita Saxová and Night and Hope have been filmed.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 26, 2015
The old Czech fortress of Terezín was transformed into a prison and Jewish ghetto during the Nazi occupation. Life was rough, there was a shortage of everything and the inhabitants always had to have a suitcase ready, for they never knew when they would be sent to a concentration camp.
A young man helps his friend, Vili, to smuggle some goods into the fortress and, as it is raining hard, Vili invites him to come to the attic where he lives with Leah. The narrator is completely mesmerized with the eighteen year old beauty, but is it worth falling in love when you don´t know where you’re going to be tomorrow?
The author lived in Terezín for two years before being sent to Auschwitz, so he knows what he is writing about. At that night, in the attic, Vili, Leah and the narrator talk about their past and their inexistent future and you really get to feel the hardship of life in the ghetto, where clothes are made of tablecloths, soap is a luxury and rats and lice are everyday companions. In these conditions, the line that separates right and wrong is quite thin and good people may do bad things just to postpone their transportation to a concentration camp.
I felt the ending was a bit abrupt; I would have liked to learn more about the characters life after the ghetto, but a really absorbing read, nevertheless. Let’s hope this never happens again!
A young man helps his friend, Vili, to smuggle some goods into the fortress and, as it is raining hard, Vili invites him to come to the attic where he lives with Leah. The narrator is completely mesmerized with the eighteen year old beauty, but is it worth falling in love when you don´t know where you’re going to be tomorrow?
The author lived in Terezín for two years before being sent to Auschwitz, so he knows what he is writing about. At that night, in the attic, Vili, Leah and the narrator talk about their past and their inexistent future and you really get to feel the hardship of life in the ghetto, where clothes are made of tablecloths, soap is a luxury and rats and lice are everyday companions. In these conditions, the line that separates right and wrong is quite thin and good people may do bad things just to postpone their transportation to a concentration camp.
I felt the ending was a bit abrupt; I would have liked to learn more about the characters life after the ghetto, but a really absorbing read, nevertheless. Let’s hope this never happens again!
April 12, 2012
This is my first Czech author and I only just realised whilst writing this review that Lustig was at Theresienstadt concentration camp, from where he was later transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, according to his bio. No wonder the novel is full of so many specific details - sometimes too many.
But despite the grim setting and the constraints of that setting Lustig keeps the tension alive and depicts exceedingly well the three very different characters: Leah - the beautiful insecure young woman of the title, the wily, self serving Villi and the narrator. What I love most is that Lustig is using his talents to bring to life a world - a time and place that must never be forgotten!
But despite the grim setting and the constraints of that setting Lustig keeps the tension alive and depicts exceedingly well the three very different characters: Leah - the beautiful insecure young woman of the title, the wily, self serving Villi and the narrator. What I love most is that Lustig is using his talents to bring to life a world - a time and place that must never be forgotten!
April 21, 2012
I am writing this review a few years after I read this book. I want to give it a second chance. I think there is so much potential in this book. maybe I was just not in the right mind when I read it so I remember not appreciating this so well. I remember the ending was spectacularly sad and one of the most painful ones I ever read but aside from that, I remember nothing else. I know that this is set during the 2nd WW and I love reading books about that. I remember it to be dramatic too.
The writer is Czech and I love Czech language. After Kundera, I think this is the 2nd Czech writer I have read and I wanna read more.
The writer is Czech and I love Czech language. After Kundera, I think this is the 2nd Czech writer I have read and I wanna read more.
August 8, 2011
effectively evokes a brief but intense meeting between three young adults brought together not by chance but by the awful efficiency of the Final Solution. frequent bracketed remarks, made with the benefit of hindsight, create creeping dread.
June 13, 2011
So disappointed by this one - found the translation really clunky, and by page 50 I decided to give up...
September 16, 2012
Fine writing. Sad but not melodramatic.
February 11, 2014
Love in the concentration camp of Terezin. Beautifully compelling about the lives of those marked down for transport to Auschwitz.
June 30, 2024
This book really got me emotionally. Based in the small town of Terezín, the book could be considered a close reflection and fictionalised account of the author’s own experiences from the Holocaust and his journey to Auschwitz from Prague. I have been to the town and camp in Terezín in person so the setting was quite familiar to me yet so distant. This has a very straight-to-the-point way of reflecting his experiences of the Holocaust I feel, and I did feel a bit taken back reading the way things were described. This was honestly a great book.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews