Edith Hahn was an outspoken young woman in Vienna when the Gestapo forced her into a ghetto and then into a labor camp. When she returned home months later, she knew she would become a hunted woman and went underground. With the help of a Christian friend, she emerged in Munich as Grete Denner. There she met Werner Vetter, a Nazi Party member who fell in love with her. Despite Edith's protests and even her eventual confession that she was Jewish, he married her and kept her identity a secret. In wrenching detail, Edith recalls a life of constant, almost paralyzing fear. She tells of German officials who casually questioned the lineage of her parents; of how, when giving birth to her daughter, she refused all painkillers, afraid that in an altered state of mind she might reveal something of her past; and of how, after her husband was captured by the Soviet army, she was bombed out of her house and had to hide while drunken Russian soldiers raped women on the street. Yet despite the risk it posed to her life, Edith created a remarkable record of survival. She saved every document and set of papers issued to her, as well as photographs she managed to take inside labor camps. Now part of the permanent collection at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., these hundreds of documents, several of which are included in this volume, form the fabric of a gripping new chapter in the history of the Holocaust -- complex, troubling, and ultimately triumphant.

[英]伊迪丝·汉恩·比尔，原名伊迪丝·汉恩，出生于1914年，成长于奥地利维也纳。

·进入大学深造，这在20世纪30年代奥地利年轻女性中极为罕见；

·1941年，她被迫前往德国北部的劳改营劳动，13个月里每周劳动80小时，分配到仅供充饥的食物；

·1942年，她被遣返维也纳，在朋友帮助下化名格蕾特·但纳，潜往慕尼黑；

·在慕尼黑，她遇到纳粹军官维纳·弗特，并向后者坦诚了自己的犹太人身份，两人1943年结婚，前往勃兰登堡生活，1944年生下一个女儿；

·1945年德国战败，伊迪丝重申自己的犹太人身份，并成为勃兰登堡家庭法庭法官；

·1947年，伊迪丝与维纳感情彻底破裂，协议离婚；

·1948年，苏联企图吸纳伊迪丝为东德安全部密探，她逃亡至英国；

·1957年，与犹太珠宝商人弗雷德·比尔结婚；

·1984年，移居以色列，后再移居英国，2009年于伦敦去世。

伊迪丝将私人文件捐献给美国华盛顿大屠杀博物馆，共计800份，这是馆内所收藏的属于单个人的最庞大的文献之一。

[美]苏珊·德沃金，美国小说家、剧作家，本书合著者。她的著作包括经典喜剧电影《窈窕淑男》，小说《平民百姓》《花园小姐》等，所合作的项目曾获艾美奖、皮博迪奖、国家图书奖提名。