The Veiled Sun: From Auschwitz to New Beginnings

The Veiled Sun is a Holocaust memoir written in a highly literate style. Paul Schaffer spent his teenage years on the run from the Nazis in Austria, Belgium and France, and then in Auschwitz from 1942 to 1945. He survived to become a successful industrialist who was honoured by the government of France. Paul Schaffer’s story provides insights into a middle-class Jewish childhood in pre-war Vienna, attitudes to Jewish refugees in Vichy France, arrest and detention in France, survival in Auschwitz, and the return to post-war France to face the challenges of re-integration into French society.

Published with the support of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah.

Reviews

The restraint and authenticity of Paul Schaffer’s account make the message he conveys all the more valuable. There is no doubt that Paul will evoke the same empathy in his readers as he does in the students to whom he has spoken so often. To both, he provides an example of a young man who, despite the humiliations and afflictions he endured in the concentration camp, was able to remain a human being. For the image he conveys of the survivors, for his confidence in humanity that he was able to retain, he deserves our thanks.–Simone Veil