By Eve Keller

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Judged only as a World War Two survivor’s chronicle, Millie Werber’s story would be remarkable enough. Born in central Poland in the town of Radom, she found herself trapped in the ghetto at the age of fourteen, a slave laborer in an armaments factory in the summer of 1942, transported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944, before being marched to a second armaments factory. She faced death many times; indeed she was certain that she would not survive. But she did.

Many years later, when she began to share her past with Eve Keller, the two women rediscovered the world of the teenage girl Millie had been during the war. Most important, Millie revealed her most precious private memory: of a man to whom she was married for a few brief months. He was — if not the love of her life — her first great unconditional passion. He died, leaving Millie with a single photograph taken on their wedding day, and two rings of gold that affirm the presence of a great passion in the bleakest imaginable time.

Genre:

“While she's decades younger than Alice Herz-Sommer, Millie Werber is also an inspiring figure. ‘Two Rings: A Story of Love and War,' which she wrote with Eve Keller (Public Affairs) is a beautifully written memoir of surviving the Holocaust as a teenager. Werber, who now lives on Long Island, reveals the unlikely heroes of her life, and also a powerful and tragic wartime love story that she had kept hidden in the years since.”

Anton Newspapers

“Werber and Keller movingly convey the hopelessness of being a teenager, a widow, and a factory worker at a Nazi-operated facility, with no end to the casual cruelty and violent deaths in sight. In addition, Werber's 1943 marriage, her time at Auschwitz in 1944, and subsequent relocation to Lippstadt, Germany in 1945 are covered in great detail and make for a compelling read.”

Sydney Morning Herald / The Age (Australia)
“A heartbreaking tale of lost love… These stories are tributes to those they loved and lost, and whom they want not to be forgotten…In between all of this are descriptions of the brutality in the camps. Ultimately, this will leave the biggest impression on readers, most of whom - like this one - will struggle to comprehend the evil that men and women are capable of perpetrating against others.”

Curled Up with a Good Book
Kirkus Review

“Werber's story is wholly engrossing, written with exceptional immediacy and attention to detail… A deeply affecting addition to Holocaust literature.”

Booklist

“Among all the shelves of Holocaust memoirs, this book stands out for the quality of the spare, honest, passionate narrative of survivor Millie Werber… A story certain to spark discussion.”

The Weekender

“Every now and then a book comes along that so clearly draws the line between catastrophic devastation and minor nuisance that it's impossible to ignore… It is impossible to not be moved by the writing in this book, and it is impossible to not be awed by the fact that Werber's survival was simply based on luck, chance and, often, the kindness of others.”

American Jewish World
“Charmingly told… Millie kept much of this private for 60 years, until a son persuaded her to tell it to Keller. The result keeps you turning the pages.”
Jewish Week

On Sale: Mar 27, 2012
Page Count: 256 pages
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN-13: 9781610391221

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Millie Werber

About the Author

Millie Werber is today the matriarch of a close and loving family. After moving to the United States in 1946, she and her husband Jack raised their two sons in Queens, NY., where together they built a real estate business. They lived happily together until Jack’s death in 2006. Millie now lives on Long Island surrounded by her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Eve Keller is a professor and director of graduate studies at Fordham University. She is the author of Generating Bodies and Gendered Selves: The Rhetoric of Reproduction in Early Modern England, and is a past president of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts.

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