A Brilliant Life: An Unforgettable Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz and Learning to Live Again (Paperback) - Rachelle Unreich

'A delicate, evocative story of strength and survival that turns on one of the most powerful forces in the known universe: a mother's love.' - Jonathan Freedland, author of The Escape Artist

A powerful, true story of a Holocaust survivor told by her daughter - a tale that reminds us of the resilience of the soul and the ability of the heart to heal.

Born in Czechoslovakia, Mira was only 12 years old when World War II broke out and 17 when the Nazis finally caught up with her. Torn apart from her family, she went on to survive four concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and a Death March when she was too weak to walk. She lived when almost everyone she knew did not.

At 88, living in Australia, Mira is diagnosed with cancer and her daughter, a journalist, decides to interview her to distract her from her illness. As Mira gives her testimony Rachelle comes to understand how Mira's unique perspective - seeing her experiences through the lens of the goodness of the people who helped her - protected her from the depths of humanity's cruelty, and enabled her to go on to live a full and brilliant life.

Rachelle also fits together the jigsaw pieces of her own life as a child of a survivor. She comes to understand that however different their lives have been, she and her mother are uniquely united by a fierce inner strength to live, and a mystery of strange things that always seem to happen around them.

A beautiful story of love, loss, wonder and the deepest kind of trust in life, A Brilliant Life questions the role that fate, chance and destiny play. It is a tribute to family, a story of incredible resilience, and a chronicle of the deep connection between a mother and a child which not even death can destroy.

About the Author

Rachelle Unreich has been a journalist for 35 years. Her work has appeared in Harper's Bazaar, Elle, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review, Rolling Stone, Good Weekend, and she has been extensively published in the UK, US and South-East Asia. She spent seven years in the US writing about the entertainment industry and now lives in Melbourne.