Postcard from Piešťany
£16.99
Published by Lemon Soul / ISBN: 9781068572678 / Release date: December 1st 2026
“Don’t wait for miracles – you must seize the moment and create them yourself.”
These words, spoken by Holocaust survivor Dr Gertrud Friedmann, capture the spirit of this remarkable memoir.
Gertrud’s daughter, oral historian Dr Bea Lewkowicz OBE, found a typed manuscript hidden in an envelope among her mother’s papers after Gertrud’s death in 2020. Written by Gertrud herself, it recounts her childhood and survival in wartime Slovakia with striking immediacy, told from the perspective of the young girl she once was.
Growing up in the Slovak spa town of Piešťany, Gertrud enjoyed a happy childhood until anti-Jewish laws shattered the world she knew. In 1942, Gertrud and her family fled to escape deportation, and for the next three years Gertrud survived under false identities in a succession of hiding places — first with her uncle in Žilina, and from November 1944 in Zvolen, where they lived under the same roof as two Nazi officers. Unaware of the family’s true identity, the officers grew fond of the two young girls living beneath them, and when they retreated with the German army, they sent the sisters a postcard from Piešťany. More than eighty years later, that postcard survives, reproduced here alongside photographs, documents and excerpts from Gertrud’s autograph book.
Postcard from Piešťany is both an intimate account of one family’s survival and a memorial to a vibrant Jewish community that was virtually destroyed. Gertrud bears witness not only to the courage and resilience that enabled her family to survive, but to the relatives, friends and neighbours who were murdered.
Translated and edited by her daughter, the manuscript and Gertrud’s archive are brought together here for the first time, restoring one family’s story to the wider history of the Jews of Slovakia, and standing as a testament to the power of memory and the enduring responsibility to bear witness.
About the Author
Oral Historian Dr Bea Lewkowicz OBE has dedicated more than 30 years to documenting and recording the lives of Jewish Holocaust survivors and refugees. She is co-founder and Director of the AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive and Sephardi Voices UK, two pioneering oral history projects that preserve the diverse experiences of Jewish refugees and survivors in Britain. In 2026, she was appointed OBE for services to Holocaust remembrance and education.
