Author Description

Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) emigrated from Germany to Palestine in 1923 and settled in Jerusalem. The letters written to him by his mother, Betty, between 1933-39 were sent from Berlin and various other places. Her letters reflect the atmosphere in Germany during the rise of the Nazi regime and the growing discrimination against the Jews. She also reports on repeated arrests and incarcerations of her son Werner (b. 1895), a lawyer and a communist, by the Nazi authorities; he was eventually deported to Buchenwald and killed in 1940. She discusses the emigration of relatives and friends, including that of her eldest son to Australia in 1937, and her own efforts to emigrate, in which she finally succeeded in March 1939. She died in Australia in 1946.