Mattersdorf, Guta, Zagreb, Italy, Israel

In this memoir, Meir Deutsch describes a family whose father was taken to an extermination camp, and a courageous mother who navigated impossible ways and with daily struggle to save herself and her three small children.

Deutsch describes the township where his father was born, Mattersdorf, a well known Jewish community and one of the "seven kehilot". The author describes the German nation as seen by himself, in light of Germany's history.

The story goes beyond that period, to meeting the Jewish Brigade, his arrival to Israel still under British Mandate and founding a family in a country whose establishment he witnessed. This is an integral part of the book and the story of rebirth. Prof. Shevach Weiss, Chairman of the Council of Yad Vashem

Meir Deutsch was born in 1935 in Zagreb Yugoslavia. After his father's arrest and transfer to the death camp Jasenovac, the family fled to Italy where they spent most of the war years, until liberated by the Allies and the Jewish Units in the British Army. He made aliya in 1945, and was sent by the Aliyat Hanoar to "Bate Avot" at the Ponevez Yeshiva of Rabbi Josef Kahaneman. Meir Deutsch studied at the "Kol Tora" Yeshiva and he is a graduate of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He worked for the Bank of Israel and was its Comptroller. After retiring he worked as a Journalist for the financial Paper "Globes".