The Forgotten Letters - Surviving the Holocaust in Africa

Ralph was your typical South African. He worked hard to support his family and raise his son, Norman, to be a principled man. Norman knew that his father was originally from Germany, and that his grandparents and uncle had been killed by the Nazis. But details were scarce, as Ralph rarely spoke about his past and conducted himself like most other South African fathers. Yet Norman recalls how every Sunday, his father would put on dress clothes and a bow tie, position himself in front of his typewriter, and write letters. He wrote for hours, but what he wrote was unknown.
Tragedy befell the Schwab family when Ralph was hit by a car and killed in 1971. His letters were forgotten, abandoned on a shelf in the family garage for over thirty years, until the end of 2009.
In 2008, Daniel, Ralph's grandson was in his parents' garage and noticed some boxes that didn't seem to fit the general theme of the work tools stored there. Curious, he opened them to see what they contained. What he found would affect his identity in profound ways. Letters, well over 2,000 of them, written in German, French and English, telling the stories of Ralph's family, friends, and of the Jewish community of their home town, Hanau, as they struggled with the new reality of Nazi Germany. Not only that, the letters also documented Ralph's determination after the war to discover what had happened to those he loved. Ralph had made carbon copies of almost every letter he wrote, and had kept the letters he had received in return. The letters contain descriptions of day-to-day life, such as the preparations for his brother Hans' Bar Mitzvah, as well as the efforts he made to help his family escape Nazi Germany. www.fromthingslost.com