Milena

Chronicles the friendship between the author and Czech journalist Milena Jesenska, who met in 1940 in a Nazi concentration camp as political prisoners for their anti-Nazi views

YA This is the story of the fate of intellectuals in the Europe overrun by the Nazis. Although the account deals inevitably with sorrow and tragedy, it is singularly free of fear or self-pity, and is written with objectivity, honesty, and courage. It is also a chronicle of the indestructibility of the loving human heart. Milena Jesenska's spirit survives the loss of her homeland, her livelihood, her friends and family, and finally her life. Her friend, author Buber-Neumann, reveals her own courage and love for fellow-sufferers in the death camp Ravensbruck. Jesenska's early life, her journalistic career, and her much publicized love affair with Franz Kafka are detailed in the book. The theme of this biography is the incredible strength of the human heart, its unending desire for love and friendship, and its ability to overcome any obstacle. A fine addition to biography collections. Dortha Dee Vaughn, Port Arthur Independent School District
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Until now, Milena Jesenska (1896-1944) has been known outside Czechoslovakia only as the recipient of Franz Kafka's Letters to Milena. But as one soon discovers, Milena (which means "loving one") was an innovative journalist, author (The Way to Simplicity), underground political leader and intimate friend of creative intellectuals in Vienna and Prague. Buber-Neumann, a former German Communist who had been imprisoned in the Soviet Gulag and turned over to the Nazis in 1941, met her at Ravensbruck concentration camp, where Milena, another disillusioned ex-Communist, was also incarcerated. Milena, the heartbreaking, inspiring story of their intense four-year friendship, introduces us to two indomitable women of nobility and courage, as well as describing SS murders, tortures and mutilations by experimentation. Their deep friendship, an open protest against the humiliation imposed on them, succeeded in mitigating "the unbearable reality."
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Buber-Neumann met Milena Jesenska (1896-1944) in October 1940 at Ravensbruck concentration camp. They remained intimate friends through four years of confinement until Milena's death due to illness. From long conversations with Milena, interviews later with Milena's prewar friends in Prague, Franz Kafka's Letters to Milena , and Milena's own journalism and books, Buber-Neumann has constructed a loving but candid life of this remarkable Czech woman. An iconoclast, Milena was a widely known personality in slightly off-beat artistic and literary circles. Her passions led her through numerous stormy affairs, including one with Kafka. In Buber-Neumann she has found an adept and discriminating biographer. James B. Street, Santa Cruz P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.