Rosa's Child: One Woman's Search for Her Past

by Jeremy Josephs, Susi Bechhofer

This remarkable, tragic story is ultimately an uplifting account of one woman's determined journey in search of her past and herself. In London in 1939, 3-year-old Susi Bechhöfer had just arrived in London on the Kindertransport evacuating Jewish children from Germany. Adopted by a childless Welsh minister and his wife, she and her twin sister were given a new identity to erase all traces of their previous existence. Only fifty years later do these women discover they're the daughters of Rosa Bechhöfer, a young Jewish woman who perished in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, and Otto Hald, a proud soldier in Hitler's army. The discovery of her real identity propels Susi on a painful and courageous quest in search of her past and the surviving members of her natural family. In the course of her search, she confronts dark secrets from her own past and urgently needs to reappraise her life. Now a practicing psychotherapist, the memory of Rosa, the mother she never knew, will always be with her.

Genres: Adoption, Memoir, Holocaust, War, History, Biography

224 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1998

Reviews

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very sad but also happy story of finding out who you are and where you come from.

[Videoclimber(AKA)MTsLilSis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poor Susi! Apparently her life was going to be bad no matter where she ended up. A heartbreaking story that sadly was not well written.