"Yes, I am alive but Kremer is dead. Now the battle is already over and we are able to rest. I no longer have my friend, I am an orphan."
This quote was taken from a letter that was originally written in Yiddish. It is one of the many moving letters sent home by Jewish soldiers fighting for the Austro-Hungarian and German alliance in WWI. The letters in this rare book, now available in English for the first time, are a unique insight into life and battle on the front lines and the Jewish experience in particular. " . . . only Polish and Jewish soldiers were used to storm the defences of the fortress at Przemysl. When they were beaten off . . . they were forced back onto the attack by the machine guns of their own troops."
There is one, great leitmotiv running through the messages: hope for equality; it shines through the letters as strongly as the desire for a German victory and for peace.
"May this great moment find a great race, may it cause us to educate ourselves so that after the war we can begin life with new concepts, new perceptions."
Tragically, as Jakob Wassermann describes in his his autobiography, "My Way as a German and a Jew", that hope was a short-lived flame crushed by the Nazis.
There is immense emotion in the letters, too, of course, because of the keenly-felt loss of comrades and a yearning for home and loved ones. This is not unique to them but their Jewish viewpoint is. The strong, traditional element in Judaism, brings the conflict between war and belief into sharp contrast and the soldiers' attempts to keep to their faith and rituals during the Great War, is touching and often tinged with humour. A heart-warming, moving and thought-provoking book.
