In 1940, at the age of 23, Mirjam began reporting in her letters to Leo on what was happening to the Jews. Her position on the Jewish Council not only allowed her a good view of events as they happened, but also made it possible for her to protect her family. Her letters, therefore, provide us with a unique picture of the dilemmas of the Jewish elite. At first, that elite had hoped to circumvent the threat of chaos and violence by working with the Nazis. In the course of time, however, it became clear that the most anyone could do was attempt to keep their family, friends and acquaintances off the deportation lists for as long as possible.

In her letters, Mirjam describes the terrible days and nights during which the lists were drawn up, the panic, despair and arguments among members of the Council’s staff, the poignant cases of human suffering that underscored the impossibility of their task. Yet those same letters also make clear precisely how natural the urge to survive really was. Throughout it all, her love for Leo in Palestine provided Mirjam with hope for the future, and the determination to save those she loved.

Finally, in 1943, the last members of the Jewish Council’s own staff were deported. Mirjam focused all her hope on being added to the Palestine List of Jews eligible for a possible exchange of prisoners. In June 1944 she was actually allowed to leave Bergen-Belsen, as part of the only such exchange ever held with Palestine.

Day by day, Mirjam describes a nerve-wracking world, in which the Jews did everything they could to survive. She makes the reader immediate party to the sense of growing danger, the hope, and the issues which divided and subdued the Jewish community. These moving letters are of great historical importance.