L'Chaim
L’CHAIM
Margit Chinkes’ Holocaust Survivor Story
by Angelica M. Osborne
softcover, 80 pages, 6 x 9
34 Black & White Photos
ISBN: 978-1-59152-199-0
$14.95
Margit Chinkes lived through the Holocaust but never shared her story—How a fourteen-year-old German girl in Frankfurt was picked up by the Gestapo in 1944, endured and survived the horrors of the Holocaust, rescued herself, and went on to lead a seemingly perfect life in the United States, was a story she left to her daughter, the author, to discover. This unique account is not embellished beyond ascertainable facts but as riveting as any Holocaust novel. The cards and letters Margit wrote from the detention center and concentration camp where she was held are heartrending while also revealing an inner strength that carried her through the ordeal.
The backstory of how Angie Osborne, motivated by her faith and grandchildren, traveled to Europe to uncover her mother's story from only a few fragments nearly twenty years after Margit's death is awe-inspiring. This story will resonate with anyone intrigued by personal stories of World War II and students of that history, especially adolescents, and is a lesson of the price innocents pay in a world ruled by ethnic and racial division.