Hanna's Diary, 1938-1941: Czechoslovakia to Canada

By Hanna Spencer

Book Overview

Hanna Fischl, a Czech of Jewish descent, was a twenty-four-year-old teacher in a German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia when Hitler's shadow loomed over Europe in 1938. No longer able to associate openly with her lover, Hans Feiertag, the talented Christian composer whom she had loved since her teens, she began writing a diary at his request so that, once they were reunited, he could learn about her life while they had been apart. Written in a touching and candid style, This book is the result of that request.

Hanna's Diary, 1938-1941 offers an intimate view of sweeping historical events that engulfed Europe and the world, evoking the creeping fear, desperate hopes, desertion of friends, and sense of isolation that Hanna Spencer felt as Nazism spread. The diary follows Spencer to England - where she faced misery of a different kind - and then to Canada where, as a young immigrant with a PhD, she worked in her uncle's glove-making factory before finally landing a teaching job in Ottawa. Spencer describes her experiences lecturing on Czechoslovakia's history and its takeover by the Nazis, and her resulting celebrity on the Ontario lecture circuit.

Written with clear wit and a sharp eye for detail, Hanna's Diary, 1938-1941 is a must-read for anyone interested in the human side of the Second World War.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 077352231X
• ISBN13: 9780773522312
• Release Date: June 2001
• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

An amazing journey into the past...

As a child of the seventies, I know not of the turbulent times that so many lived through during the War. To hear in Hanna's own words the pain of discrimination, and being labelled as subhuman, and to hear the sadness, fear and longing for her true love Hans (who she can no longer associate with as he is a Christian, she a Jewish descendant)...to hear these things in her own words from that time, transported me to that time in history. I almost felt as if I was there, sharing in her pain and not knowing the uncertain future...even though I knew what history had brought, and I was indeed using my will and hope for it not to happen (even though I knew War would be there, as well as the persecution of so many innocent people). I wished I could erase history...but from reading this story, I hope many people will learn from it. I learned that strength and faith, can see us through many hard times.This book was an amazing journey and I feel richer for hearing Hanna's words.