When research reveals hushed WWII trauma embedded in a British family of Czech-Jewish ancestry. T Researching family history means stepping into the unknown; Nicola discovered that after an old passport (issued in 1935) unexpectedly fell into her life. The passport owner was her grandfather's sister, and it marked the start of a journey into the tragic past. The Unspeakable is a thoughtfully constructed and moving Holocaust memoir, vividly blending the author’s first-person experiences during her research. The truth gradually emerged about never-mentioned relatives who were German-speaking Czech Jews the Nazis had murdered.The author shares her experiences of sudden shifts in consciousness and the bewildering sadness that overcame her as she drew lost family members out of history and they regained their identity. Compelling, unpublished writings of relatives who survived World War II surfaced and revealed the quiet side of the Holocaust: dispossession, involuntary emigration, identity issues, and suicide. The narrative tells how intergenerational trauma can evolve and explores reasons for the older generation not speaking about the past with younger family members. The Unspeakable shows how present generations may discover how little they know of their forebears' background struggles and losses. These issues are chillingly relevant to the present day. Preface Foreword by Peter Richard Pinard PrologueDawnThe Black Forest The person who wrote this book Letters Bruno Marianne Irma Grete Photos Eva Else HPV: My father Therese Johanna and Martha The Wilhelm family Melitta Opava Julia and Nicola Connecting links Epilogue Appendices Literature and sources Acknowledgments About the Author Amsterdam Publishers Holocaust Library