Manhattan Rare Book Company

First edition of Rosa de Winter-Levy’s 1945 Auschwitz memoir, one of the earliest published survivor accounts, with important firsthand testimony concerning Anne Frank's family.

Rosa De Winter-Levy and the Frank Family
Like the Frank family, Rosa De Winter-Levy, a Jewish woman from Holland, hid when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. She and her family remained in hiding with a farmer’s family for over a year, but like the Franks and so many other families, they were eventually betrayed and then arrested. On 22 July 1944, the De Winters were transported to the Westerbork transit camp where they landed in the same prison barracks as Anne, Margot, Otto and Edith Frank. A few months later, on September 3, both families were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp where Rosa’s husband, Emanuel, was selected for death and murdered shortly after arrival. The women of both families: Rosa and her daughter Judik, and Edith and her daughters Margot and Anne were assigned to the same barracks. While Rosa and Edith stayed at Auschwitz, all three girls were deported a few weeks later to other camps (Anne and Margot to Bergen-Belsen and Judik to Kratzau.) As their circumstances were similar and their children of a similar age, the two mothers connected and Rosa said of Edith “We comforted each other and became friends.” Of course, the fate of the Frank family is well known. Edith sickened and passed away at Auschwitz and Margot and Anne also died of illness, leaving only their father Otto as the sole survivor of both the family and of the Secret Annex. The De Winter family fared better as both Rosa and Judik survived the camps and were eventually reunited in May of 1945. Rosa De Winter-Levy’s connection to the Frank family continued after the war when she met Otto on the journey back to the Netherlands. It is from Rosa that Otto learned the details of his wife Edith’s death.

Escaped the Gas Chamber!
Remarkably, Rosa De Winter-Levy published her firsthand account of her experiences at Auschwitz in September of 1945, only a few months after the camp was liberated. The full Dutch title Aan de gaskamer ontsnapt! Het satanswerk van de S.S.: relaas van het lijden in en de bevrijding uit het concentratiekamp “Birkenau” bij Auschwitz, translated as Escaped the Gas Chamber! The Satanic Work of the SS: An Account of the Suffering in, and Liberation from, the Birkenau Concentration Camp near Auschwitz. In this early Holocaust memoir, we hear the direct and immediate impressions left on the victim, rather than a deeply reflective work that would come to mark later Holocaust memoirs. De Winter-Levy recounts her arrest, deportation, and imprisonment after her family was betrayed while in hiding. Central to her story is her anxiety about being separated from her daughter, Judik, and her determination to survive. In the text, she describes the torments of her imprisonment including hunger, forced labor, death selection, and camp life. The memoir also records details of her contact with Edith Frank including a description of Edith’s physical and emotional health. Rosa was among the last known witnesses to Edith Frank’s decline and recorded seeing her shortly before her death.

Rosa died on 16 October 1985, at the age of 80. She remained friends with Otto Frank throughout her life.

Note: Edith Frank is discussed on (at least) pages 24 and 29.

Auschwitz: A Mother’s Story
In 2024, nearly 80 years after the original Dutch publication of Escaped the Gas Chamber, an English translation of De Winter-Levy’s memoir was published by Monoray and translated by Liz Waters entitled Auschwitz: A Mother’s Story: How I Fought to Survive and See My Daughter Again. The renewed publication reflects the continuing historical importance of De Winter-Levy's testimony, including her account of separation from her daughter Judik and her eyewitness recollections of Edith Frank at Auschwitz.

Doetinchem: C. Misset, 1945. First edition. Original printed wrappers; custom box. Wrappers with only a hint of wear. An outstanding copy. RARE.

References
[1] Anne Frank House, “Rosa de Winter-Levy."

Price: $3,500 .