Join us on Feb. 16 at 2:00 p.m. for a discussion of "No Past Tense : Love and Survival in the Shadow of the Holocaust" by D.Z. Stone. Holli Levitsky (Jewish Studies) will facilitate a discussion with the author, Donna Stone. The Sunday Jewish Book and Discussion Group is free and open to the public. For more details and to RSVP, contact Rhonda Rosen at rjr32retd@gmail.com.

About the Book

"No Past Tense" is the biography of Katarina (Kati) Kellner and William (Willi) Salcer, two Czech Jews who as teenagers were swept up by the Holocaust in Hungary and survived Auschwitz and Mauthausen, respectively. Covering their entire lives, weaving in first person "real time" voices, the unique structure of No Past Tense provides a distinctive "whole life" view of the Holocaust. The book begins with their childhoods, education in Budapest, and 16-year-old Kati meeting 19-year-old Willi in the Jewish ghetto in Plesivec, a Slovak village annexed by Hungary in 1938. After liberation from the camps they returned to discover most Jews were gone, and the villagers did not want them back. In defiance, Kati took up residence in a shed on her family’s property, and in reclaiming what was hers, won Willi’s heart. They lived as smugglers in post-war Europe until immigrating illegally to Palestine in 1946. In 1958, saying he did not want the children to know war, Willi convinced Kati to move to America.

About the William H. Hannon Library

The William H. Hannon Library fosters excellence in academic achievement through an array of distinctive services that enable learners to feed their curiosity, experience new worlds, develop their ideas, inform their decision-making, and inspire others. The library is open to the public during regular business hours. More information can be found at library.lmu.edu.