Martin Doerry Mein verwundetes Herz: Das Leben der Lilli Jahn 1900-1944 (My Wounded Heart: The Life of Lilli Jahn 1900-1944) Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt GmbH, July 2002. 352 pp. ISBN 3-421-05634-X Sebastian Haffner suggested that those who want to understand what happened in Germany after 1933 should read biographies, not only of statesmen but also of private citizens. Lilli Jahn is just the person to prove his point - an assimilated Jew married to a Gentile (who later divorced her), a respected doctor and the mother of five children. This biography is based on letters, first those she sent and received before the war and finally, and most movingly, those she wrote to her children and they to her during her imprisonment in a labour camp at Breitenau. The letters are compelling by reason of their personal nature as expressions of love and support between members of the same family. The children's letters are often heart-rending, always touching, while Lilli's tread a careful balance between describing her daily life in the camp and protecting her children from anxiety and sorrow. The heroine of the story, next to Lilli herself, is her eldest daughter Ilse, on whom, at the age of fourteen, devolved the role of mother of the family in the harsh conditions of bombing, food shortages, and the presence of a hated stepmother. By 1948, this book also tells us, all the four daughters had emigrated to Britain, where their grandmother and Lilli's sister had found refuge before the war. They and their families now live in England, Germany and Israel and her thirteen grandchildren are Jewish, Protestant and Catholic. Lilli Jahn died in Auschwitz on or about 17 June 1944, and the documents which form the basis of this book must surely constitute the most extraordinary cache of letters ever bequeathed by a concentration camp victim. Bizarrely they spent some years in the possession of Lilli's son Gerhard, who became Minister of Justice in Willi Brandt's cabinet and gave the rest of the family no hint that they existed at all. Now her grandson, Martin Doerry, has done an excellent job of editing them. They are an invaluable historical adjunct. Treasure trove indeed.