The Letters Project

A Daughter's Journey

By: Eleanor Reissa

Narrated by: Eleanor Reissa

In 1986, when her mother died at the age of 64, Eleanor Reissa went through all of her belongings. In the back of her mother’s lingerie drawer, she found an old leather purse. Inside that purse was a large wad of folded papers. They were letters. Fifty-six of them. In German. Written in 1949. Letters from her father to her mother, when they were courting.

Just four years earlier, he had fought to stay alive in Auschwitz and on the Death March while she had spent the war years suffering in Uzbekistan. Thirty years later, Eleanor — a theatre artist who has been on the forefront of keeping Yiddish alive — finally had the letters translated. The particulars of those letters send her off on an unimaginable adventure into the past, forever changing her and anyone who listens to this book.

©2022 Eleanor Reissa (P)2022 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Fantastic!!

What an amazing book. I couldn’t stop listening to it. So many different emotions to be felt.

It'll stay with me

I've read memoirs before about women and their parents, about 'second generation' (children of survivors of the Holocaust), or about solving mysteries and searching for answers.... but this book is all of the above all at once and by far the most compelling. And the audiobook, with the author's thoroughly engaging narration .... it's like she's telling you the story over coffee at the corner cafe.

The emotions are overwhelming....as you'd expect from a memoir like this. But then the moments sprinkled throughout the tale of wry humor.... perfect. (At one point when I laughed out loud and my husband, across the room, said in confusion, "I thought you were listening to a Holocaust memoir?" I couldn't explain. But you know what, when the author/narrator laughs with you.... it's okay to laugh, really. Cathartic, even.)

There's even a Bob Dylan cameo.

Seriously, listen to the audiobook. I imagine that reading it is also wonderful, but the audiobook narration is just next level.

I was surprised at how it left me with a deeper empathy for my own parents, and at the same time an overwhelming compassion for myself, for my own behavior through the last years of my parents' lives, and for the ignorance we all have about our parents' inner lives....

Anyway. Highly recommended. One of the few audiobooks that I look forward to listening to again.

Moving exploration of family

She’s a strong writer and a fine narrator. I learned things I wanted to know.

Wonderful and powerful

An incredible and important story of Eleanor’s family - I am recommending this far and wide.

So compelling!

What a gift to discover your parents history. But it’s a double edged sword. It’s almost like fitting puzzle pieces together, except she didn’t have any pieces at the beginning. But you take a journey with the author to find all the pieces and it’s a sad tragic puzzle full of heartache and loss. But at least she knows who her father was and where she came from emotionally. I’m so glad I read this book!!! Makes me want to delve into my own genealogy!