Henia bryer biography of barack

A Holocaust survivor still living in Cape Town, Henia Bryer was born in 1925, is an extremely private person, and many of her stories had hitherto been untold

By DEBBIE SANDLER

Off the bat, I have to confess that I have a definite penchant for Holocaust literature.

I like to think that this emanates from a sense of awe and inspiration for the resilience of the human spirit. And so there was no heaviness in my heart when I was asked to review Angela Miller-Rothbart’s debut novel, The Lightness of Air.

A serendipitous author, Miller-Rothbart – a newly retired businesswoman with time to fill – simultaneously joined a writing group and a Jewish Seniors Association in her hometown in South Africa, and found through indulging her longing to write with her desire to meet new people, a muse named Henia Bryer.

She admits that this “journey and a half” was both therapeutic and cathar