Every Day Lasts a Year: Browning, Hollander, and Tec

This was one man's collection of letters he found in his father's trunk after his father passed away. The Jewish Father had worked in a travel agency before WWII and though he tried to convince his family they needed to leave, they didn't understand the urgency. He went to England, claiming to be buying furniture for their new home, (he had just gotten married) then stowed away to the USA. His family was all exterminated during the war and this is a collection of their letters. It was a heart breaking read and very hard to fathom. The letters went from a state of frazzle-ment, to desperation where Joseph is the life raft, to The family in Europe keeps referring to Immigration paperwork Joseph was supposed to get them, but most of the mail sent to them never arrived, I kept thinking, wouldn't it be worse to know the papers were sent and may never show up than the papers were still possibly coming. There was also correspondence about a huge sum of money being transferred to a bank in order to get the family out of Poland, but the Bank never got it. The family moves many many times during the correspondence. The brother-in-laws letters were the most heartbreaking, the women tried to stay positive, but the Men were factual on that they had to close down the business, they needed a way out, had Joseph gotten them papers...etc. By the time the paperwork to go to Nicaragua came through, The Nazi's had halted remaining emigration. The last letter informs Joseph of his mother's death and we assume they were deported to a concentration camp afterwards. This was a very powerful way to present these letters, as you begin to know these people a little bit through their writings and all of a sudden everything stops. The worry become palatable even though the readers already know what happened it is like you are with Joseph wondering what is next.