A Time to Speak

People ask if God protected me. Does that mean He didn't protect those who died? I'm totally unable to answer that question. It was often a matter of timing: a fortnight later, I would not have been alive.' It is March 1939. German troops enter Prague and for Czech Jews the terror begins. This is the story of one of the survivors. Hailed as one of the most important testimonies in recent years, the latest edition of A Time To Speak by Helen Lewis is published with a new foreword by one of Ireland's greatest poets, Michael Longley. Originally published in 1992, this international best-seller is a remarkable true story with two acts; a tragic tale of unimaginable horrors experienced by Helen as a young Jewish woman incarcerated in the German concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and a story of survival as Helen went on to carve out an extraordinary career in modern dance in her adopted home city of Belfast. Helen was awarded an honorary doctorate from The University of Ulster in 1993, and from The Queen's University Belfast in 1996, in 2001 she was appointed an MBE in recognition of her work. Helen Lewis died on New Year's Eve 2009, at the age of 93. An unforgettable book, this true story of courage, fortitude, unbelievable sadness and joy is told without bitterness or anger. It is the timeless testimony, as novelist Jennifer Johnston said, '...of a woman who survived the unsurvivable.'