cover image Fate Did Not Let Me Go: A Mother's Farewell Letter

Fate Did Not Let Me Go: A Mother's Farewell Letter

Valli Ollendorff. Pelican Publishing Company, $5.95 (48pp) ISBN 978-1-58980-153-0

More than 60 years ago, just days before she was sent to the concentration camp where she died, Valli Ollendorff wrote a letter to her son, who had escaped to America. Fate Did Not Let Me Go: A Mother's Farewell Letter, with a foreword by Valli's grandson Stephen Ollendorff and photos by Ivo Pervan and Alex Bemporad, reproduces her inspirational message. Valli tells her son Ulrich, ""I will thank you a thousand times for all the love, for all the gratitude, for all the joy and sunshine which you brought into your father's and my life, starting from the day of your birth."" Though lost for 43 years, the letter finally reached Ulrich when he was 79 years old, and now his son has shared it with the world as a testament to love in the face of despair. Duotone photos depict the family in happier times as well as images of a concentration camp, and the text provides further family background.