Overview

The Liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on 15 April 1945 was hailed as a triumph of British victory over Nazi Germany. But for the 55,000 survivors of the ‘Horror Camp’, freedom brought new tragedy: a quarter died in the following five weeks. For many of those who lived, liberation meant barbed wire, military rule and a different kind of confinement. Evacuated to a nearby army barracks – soon Europe’s largest Jewish Displaced Persons’ camp – survivors faced endemic disease, bureaucratic indifference and an uncertain future. Josef Rosensaft, Jewish political leader in the camp, called the first year of freedom ‘more oppressive to our souls than the years in the hell of Auschwitz and Belsen’: ‘we saw before us a new kind of world, cold and strange’. Strange New World is the untold story of Belsen’s survivors. Refusing to remain victims, they fought to reclaim agency, build community and forge new lives from the ruins. Their history resonates today as millions of displaced people worldwide navigate the gap between rescue and true freedom.

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9781923451445

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Reviews

‘Evidence of the human capacity to endure and to find hope in the darkest circumstances’ -- Seumas Spark ‘An astonishing book’ -- Ruth Balint ‘Harrowing, forensic and compassionate’ -- Linda Jaivin ‘Powerfully moving’ -- Dan Stone ‘Rich in detail and suffused with humanity’ -- James Bulgin

Author Information

Over a career of forty years, Nadia Wheatley has published a number of award-winning works of fiction, history and biography. Strange New World is the culmination of a decade’s research into the history of post-war Germany that began with the memoir Her Mother’s Daughter, winner of the 2019 Nib Literary Award.

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