But You Did Not Come Back: A Memoir

As I walked through the Fairfax district of Los Angeles, I would see the pained and fearful look in the eyes of the old people before I would notice the tattooed number on their arm. Truly, all who were imprisoned are victims of the holocaust.

The writer was only fifteen years old when she was arrested by the Vichy government along with her father who promised her he would return. They caught sight of each other only once after that. She was sent to Birkenau and he was at Auschwitz when their work details became close. As she ran to embrace him, she was violently beaten by the guards. This book is a plea for the restoration of her family, which could never be. It is a letter to her father.

But You Did Not Come Back is a timely book. With guards at synagogues and schools in France and a heightened anti-semitism in Europe, the author despairs to the point of regretting that she survived the camps. Marcelino Loridan-Ivans has been a successful filmmaker and screenwriter, but her life is overshadowed by the eternal absence of her father. At ninety-six years old, she has given us this great book to memorialize him and millions of others.