To See You Again: A True Story of Love in a Time of War

by Betty Schimmel, Joyce Gabriel

A powerful true-life story of love and devotion describes the reunion, more than thirty years after World War II, of two wartime lovers, as the author, having survived a Nazi concentration camp and now married to another man, rediscovers her lost love. Reprint.

Genres: Holocaust, Nonfiction, History, World War II, Memoir, Biography, Romance

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 27, 1999

Reviews

[Carissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

You MUST read this book! This was a truly beautiful love story. It is a true story, told by one of the main characters, and it made me cry so much. Nothing is more romantic and emotional than a love story that is real, not made up by someone's imagination.

[Mazzou B]

so...... this is probably the first book about world war 2 that I will not be keeping in my personal library! it was well-written and quite interesting, which made me love reading it. however..... the teenage romance was too much, too passionate...and err...too descriptive. as in, embarassingly so. thankfully the young man had the wisdom and decency to not take their love to the max. he repeatedly insisted they save some things for their wedding night. but, they just about acted like a married couple otherwise. and somehow this was included in the book...the middle of the book is interesting although a little graphic. but I really couldn't love the main character who lived her entire life, even in marriage to a different man longing for her teenage love. spoiler she actually miraculously meets that love again and although they kiss a ton (so revolting as they are married to others) they do make the right decision to part again and return to their families. thankfully the ending was such! it certainly was a neat story....but the main character/author so obviously needed Jesus for there to be any reason to her life. I felt sorry for her...she had no idea why God allowed the holocaust and she definitely didn't see purpose behind being married to a man she had to make herself respond to in love instead of her original lover who likewise had to marry another. although the author is not a strong or admirable character I was impressed that she stayed with her family and finally after 28 years of marriage learned to treat her adoring husband lovingly. in fact, they had over 50 years of marriage!

[Jesika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book with gut wrenching details. At many points in the story I was saying out loud..Oh my god and would close my eyes wincing in pain. Yeah also by the way do not read this book before bed. Reading about holocaust happenings is a recipe for bad sleep and or bad dreams ;)
I was waiting and waiting toward the end for Baby and Richie to reunite. Through the years I was wondering how she could still be so in love with him. I'm trusting that this is a true story as it claims and none of the details about this couple are fabricated. In that case, there really must be such a thing as soulmates ;) So sweet and I agree with her choice in the end although it broke my heart. What a bittersweet thing to have to do.
Question: was her hubbie alive when she wrote and published this book? It sure would be tough on him and hard to swallow if he was.
Why did everyone call her Baby? That was annoying cause it reminded me of Dirty Dancing. Blech. I didn't like to have that movie interferring on my take of a holocaust book if you know what I mean.
I would recommend this to anyone who would like to read about first loves and some of the sick attrocities that happened in WWII.

[Bernadette Wean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a gut wrenching yet lovely book.

[LibraryCin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early during WWII, Betty and her Jewish family moved out of Czechoslovakia to Hungary. It was there that Betty (at 13 years old) met Richie. They fell madly in love with one another and vowed to marry one day. But they were separated in the last year of the war and though Betty, her mother, sister, and brother all survived, Betty could not find Richie after the war ended. At the encouragement of her mother, although Betty didn’t love him, she married Otto, who loved her very much. But she never lost her love for Richie and while married decades to Otto (and she had three children with him), she always looked for Richie.

I thought the first half during the war was better. Yes, the Holocaust is awful, but it was amazing that all in Betty’s family survived except for her father, much due to her mother’s encouragement, support, and resilience. I hadn’t read anything about Hungary (and its occupation) during the war until now. I felt really badly for Otto as Betty continually commiserated about losing Richie. Although he was almost never home (always working), which was hard on Betty, especially once the kids came along.

[Amyluvchild · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this story! I felt as though I was there, reliving her years during the holocaust. It's a story that is so raw, so delicate, and so heart-breaking, that I have a much more appreciation for history and the knowledge of events that took place during WWII. I admire Betty Schimmel. I am sure it was not easy to write about everything horrific that has happened to her, and I applaud her for doing so. She poured her heart to us in this book, about her struggle to live and having the brilliance guidance under her strong-willed mother, about her many years of trying to finding Ritchie, and about her loveless marriage to Otto. When I finished reading the book it was all I could think about. I ponder if her decisions were the right ones. Not many books make me cry, but Betty Schimmel's story will grab your emotions from the heart. Make sure you have tissue.

Also, don't bother trying to find this book in bookstores like I did. It's a dead-end because it's very surprisingly not being published anymore. I ordered mine online.

[Caroline Orien · Rating 2 out of 5]

A woman writes her story about how she was separated from her childhood love because of World War II. I have mixed feelings about this book. My heart broke for her because of the horrible and horrific things she had to endure but I didn't really like her as a person. I felt she was very self absorbed and her book did not flow very well. Her story is a tragedy because she continued to live in the past while trying to live a normal life on the surface. But, how can I blame her? Because of circumstances beyond her control she was forced to try and forget her first love and move on. Her problem was she couldn't really move on.

Not my favorite book but it was bearable for two reasons. 1. it made me think of how I react to circumstances beyond my control and 2. It gave me a real life glimpse into a young girl's mind and heart while living during WW2.

[Millie Conway · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this memorable true story of a family in Budapest, Hungry in the months before WWII. As the war comes to Budapest I couldn’t put this book down. It is an indictment of the cruelty driven by blind hatred that men are capable of committing. And it is also a positive view of the strength and courage of others. The strength, courage and determination of some very strong women were inspiring. Add to that a love story for the ages, and it was a fabulous read.

[Danielle Snively]

I am sad/mad over this book.
I couldn't read it fast enough and it is a heartbreaking read. Mad/sad tears.
The fact that it is a true story made me grateful for the love I get to have in my life.

[Karyl · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a way, Betty Schimmel was a very lucky person. As a girl, her father moved the family from Czechoslovakia to Budapest, Hungary, in order to flee the Nazis. But eventually, the Nazis invaded even Hungary, and it was then that Betty and her mother and siblings were sent to a concentration camp. What makes her lucky is that the invasion didn't happen until March of 1944, so the family didn't have to endure years and years of starvation and overwork like the Jews in Germany. Also Betty's mother was an extremely strong woman who kept her kids going even when they felt they had lost all hope. As a result, not only Betty but also her mother, sister, and brother all survived the Holocaust.

But Betty did lose her true love Richie thanks to Hitler and the Nazi regime. After she and her family were liberated from the concentration camp, she tried so hard to find Richie but ultimately came up empty. Eventually she gave in to a young man who was also a survivor and desperate to replace the family he lost with one of his own with Betty, and they were married. But Betty never forgot her true love, and ached for him every day of her life.

The horrors in this book are really awful. And what makes it almost worse is that Schimmel records them in such a dry, matter-of-fact voice, though you know it's totally breaking her heart and soul to witness these horrific things. The reading is difficult at times, to know that the Nazis could so easily murder someone just because s/he was a Jew. There were several times I was nearly moved to tears, reading about the awful things Schimmel witnessed during these terrible years.

I can understand why she had a difficult time with her husband Otto. He wasn't the one she wanted, and she always held out hope that Richie was still alive. It is true that she does come across as a bit self-absorbed throughout the book, since she could have realized that Otto was even more damaged than she was by his time in Auschwitz, considering he was the only surviving member of his family. I understand having a soul mate, but at the same time, she did agree to marry Otto on her own, and she could have decided to treat Otto better much earlier in their marriage, while still loving Richie in her heart of hearts. I applaud the decision she ultimately made, as it was the mature and right decision.

Highly recommended, though some of the situations can be graphic.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book. The only other book I've read regarding the holocost was Anne Frank, Diary of A Young Girl, and this was a bit different. The author actually spent most of the war outside of the prison camps, trying to stay under the radar, with her mother and siblings. She meets a boy and falls in love and they are ripped from each other destined never to see each other again. She's a tough little girl, which makes me wonder why she ended up marrying a man she didn't love and punishing them both over the years. Once she found her first love she doesn't do anything but run from him. I understand she had a family, but most of the children were grown by then.
I don't think the book was honest in regards to the love story part of it. I felt, even though it was a good story, that the author was holding information back from the reader. I felt cheated. When I heard about this story it was a moment on npr and I only caught part of it and I thought that I really needed to read this. I kind of wish I'd never heard it.
Besides the love story which I just have a problem with, her description of the war and what they had to go through, dealing with starvation, lice, marching, sickness and death was heartbreaking. Her mother seemed like a very strong woman and someone to aspire to. Getting caught in a raid with her little brother or watching her friend get shot in the street was horrific and what makes it worse is that all of this was just a small part of what that part of the world and population suffered.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has an amazing story, which happens to be true, making it even more amazing. The author is a Holocaust survivor, and she recounts her youth in Eastern Europe, the Hungarian march, time at a concentration camp, and then in the camps afterwards waiting to head to America. Truly blows my mind that this was only two generations ago. The author's love for her mother and father, and their fierce, undying parental love is humbling.

When you factor in the amazing love story, and her reunion with her "one true love" some 30 years after the Holocaust at a chance meeting in a Budapest hotel is truly incredible. I highly recommend this book; parts of it aren't easy to read, but that makes it even more important that we do so.

[Lvarley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this one! Betty and Richie are a young couple who want to be together for life and make plans to be married in the future. They are both Jewish and are forced to separate in 1944 due to the German invasion. Betty tells the story of her horrific times she is forced to endure and the hope of being with Richie again is never far from her thoughts.

She survives and marries Otto, and he is aware of her feelings for a man she hasn't seen in years. Yet Betty knows that if she is reunited with Richie they will continue their dreams together. Is Richie still alive and does he feel the same way?

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book read more like a fiction. However, Betty Schimmel had a fascinating story to tell. It just seems hard to believe that ALL of the events were true, I'll take her word on it though. Calling herself "pretty" practically in every chapter was a bit too much. And, she apparently was a brat and a carefree individual that could have cost her life and her family's life as well during the Holocaust.

So, I gave it a 4 because I believe the story is TOTALY TRUE. Hope that nothing untrue was added to enhance the life of Betty Schimmel.I believe a movie was made on this story after the book came out.

[LiteraryLeslie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this story, but I had a hard time with the main character's character. On amazon.com the review from publisher's weekly even mentions that "the breathless passages describing her teenage love affair may alienate readers who suspect that her 50-year obsession more likely stems from nostalgia for the charmed, lost world of pre-Hitler Europe than from any connection with a man she knew half a century ago". It was hard to read of her marriage to Otto and her constant longing for another man. But her story was amazing otherwise!

[anieva · Rating 4 out of 5]

How could this book not be one easily found in a bookstore? You probably have to go on-line to find this one, but it's worth it if you love a great, absorbing read.
It's very romantic. Will the lovers find each other after so many years? Incredible near-misses and ultimate reunion. I wasn't sure I should buy the book, despite its bargain price, but I did and couldn't believe I got such a great find. Recommended highly for romantics and the kind of person who used to like listening to Believe It or Not.

[Nancy I · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story of love: knowing love, love lost, love found, to know love yet again. A story that hurts in many ways and I wonder what others would have done if they found themselves is the same situation as Otto in 1950, as Baby (Betty) during her trip to Budapest in 1975. A story of amazing survival and a mother who did what she could to keep her three children together during WWII. Had not been aware of the Arrow Cross Party in Hungary and their atrocities. At times, reading this book is painful, but is definitely one to read.

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never been much of a Biography reader, but I couldn't put this one down. The story was heart-breaking, gut-wrenching, disturbing, and I loved every minute. I didn't like that it happened, obviously, but it was such a vivid retelling that I was emotionally invested and bawled like a baby at the end. I agree and disagree with the decision, for various reasons. If you're even slightly interested in the Holocaust, read this book.

[Edwina Book Anaconda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the true story about a young couple, very much in love, dreaming about their future together. They are Jewish, they live in Budapest and the year is 1944 ... they are torn apart ... sent to concentration camps ... and miraculously survive. She thinks he is dead ... but nearly 30 years later ... a strange twist of fate brings them face to face ... and back into each others arms.
This book had me in tears ... more than once.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could not believe that this book was actually a true story! I read as if it could be fiction based on all the twists and turns of Betty's life. It really is true that sometimes "truth is better than fiction." The story had me thinking long after I had finished reading it. I still cannot believe the ending and wonder...what if?

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most incredible book I have ever read. I couldn't put it down. And I had to read in isolation so I could cry. It's a very touching and heart-wrenching story. If you've been to Budapest, it's also extremely descriptive of places. Being there after reading the book was sobering.

[Anna Hawes · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's always hard for me to rate autobiographies, especially ones where the author went through such incredible hardship. Her firsthand experiences of living through WWII are invaluable and so necessary to ensure the world never forgets what happened and doesn't allow history to repeat itself. (The author had some rightfully searing comments about those who watch atrocities happen and do nothing.) This was the first WWII book I had read set in Hungary and the author did well explaining some of the politics at play that gave Hungary the fate it had. That aspect of the story was excellent. The writing style was not my favorite but the straightforward telling is useful for telling historical happenings.

However, the "love story" was so bad. First it was awkward to read all the intimate details of teenage lovers. Yes, all the details. Then her marriage was painful to read about because it was so clearly rushed and so clearly something she didn't want. I won't ruin the ending of the book but her story was pretty aggravating to read from the point that they got to America on. Can I blame a Holocaust-survivor for making poor emotional choices? No, of course not. But that doesn't mean I enjoyed reading pages and pages of it.

[Kelsey McKnight · Rating 5 out of 5]

My university has a holocaust center where survivors come to speak and donate things they carried with them to ghettos, boxcars, camps, and freedom. Less and less are coming, and soon, none will be left to speak at all.

We’ll have the stones they kept in their pockets and the letters they sewed in the hems of the dresses. Their pictures will still be on the wall for years to come, and the star patches will be displayed behind glass, the lasting remnants of a time in history we’re still trying to fully understand.

And when the survivors and witness are gone, their stories will remain. And one story in particular has stayed with me since the first page.

Betty has never forgotten her first love, a handsome boy she met in Budapest. She had always thought he’d find her, if he survived the Holocaust, but he never did. All she had was memories and daydreams of what if.

Decades later in Budapest, she sees a man across the room and her heart stops. It could be him. He could have survived. He could have gone his whole life without knowing she lived too. He could have been in Budapest waiting for her and she didn’t know.

It could be Richie, the boy she loved.

[Helen O'Toole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every book about the Holocaust should be 5 stars as we must never forget the unspeakable horrors. This book has too many utterly horrific descriptions of brutality and utter cruelty. Her mother was the bravest woman imaginable.

I do hope the author’s husband and children were warned about the contents of this biography as her obsession about her teenage love affects her marriage so badly. If she had married her Richie Kovacs as a teenager, it may not have been the rose coloured future she imagined. I felt so sad for Otto in enduring a loveless marriage for so long. The photos of them enjoying their golden anniversary is in contrast to the descriptions of the first 25 years of marriage. However I do understand that Betty and Otto were cruelly damaged by their wartime experiences & that Betty’s hope in finding her teenage love may simply have been a desperate search to return to a simpler time.

[Annaka · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was heavy and hurt so bad to read. I found myself simultaneously wanting to stop reading and never set it down. The horros of humanity documented in Betty’s story are almost defeating and in Betty’s case would have been if it wasn’t for her mother and her love. I can only imagine as a 15 year old forced to be in the conditions she was in that holding onto a teenage love would be the only light in a time of darkness. Her mothers strength and will was so incredibly inspiring I don’t think I’m ever going to stop thinking about this book. I could cry writing this review. To think of watching your babies suffer but also not wanting them to die just hurts. Imagining it hurts I can’t even think about what it was like to really truly live this story. I think everybody needs to read this as a true account as to what fear in your soul can do to humanity. God shines through this book so heavily it shows how faith can save and how faith can sometimes be the only thing you have left.

[Connie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great story of the mayhem the Nazis caused in the lives of so many innocents in W.W. II. This story is true. A great love story. Two young people who lost everything, survived everything, but got sidetracked in the process. I’m not sure I’d have made the same eventual choice the author did. It’s haunting every step of the way. Of course families couldn’t believe, or even imagine, what the work camps really were. Nor could they fathom that they would be taken from their county farms, town and villages, and large cities, and lose their fortunes and each other. The clamp down on their freedoms were gradual and they hoped the Nazi’s would be stopped as the war swept on. Even the eventual freedom of living many years in the United States, marrying and raising a family couldn’t end the love the two had for each other, but…as I said, I’m not sure I’d have made the same eventual choice. An 8.5 out of 10.

[Nicole Nye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Warning; read with at least three boxes full of tissues. This book will leave you in shambles and tear stains on your pillows. A memoir of Betty’s adolescent spent during World War II where she experience her first true love. Betty describes in great detail her story of falling in love with Richie. As World War II progresses you get a first hand look of the truly awful events that the Jewish community had to go through. What makes this book different from other memoirs written about WWII is that she continues her story after the war’s end. Will Betty find Richie after the war? Will their love be as true and strong when they were younger?

[Laurie Dewberry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t even read the synopsis of this book before I read the whole thing. I have never done that before; I just took my neighbor’s recommendation and jumped right in, so the suspense of knowing whether Richie had lives or died was what kept me going. The ending left me so conflicted, but I admire Betty’s ability to move forward with her life despite the anger and hurt she had experienced. I was almost breathless when she encountered Richie again. I can’t help but wonder about him and how the rest of his life turned out.

[Lynn Angell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful story told by a courageous woman. Her story, like so many others from this time, is important to have been written and should be read by all. My heart breaks with the knowledge that hate can propel people, even our neighbors, to such cruelty. The fact that the author survived and was able to record the events and her feelings shows incredible emotional strength. My qualms about her writing seem inconsequential in light of her tortuous physical and emotional journey.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

What do you do with a book that’s such a slog and then an ending that completely surprises you and only could’ve happened because it was true? You average a 2 star book with a 5 star ending and get approx 4 stars??? This book generated THE BEST discussion at book club. It was so much fun. I love reading true accounts of WW2. The stories leave me feeling hope and we could all use more of that these days.