A Sephardi Sea. Jewish memories across the modern Mediterranean

to the reader. Sobriquets, mononyms, or shared experiences for example, often remain know only to the letter writer and their addressee. The additional context provided in Life and Love, both familial and pertaining to the wider Prague/Czech/European situation, sets the work apart from translated letters remaining in the archive uncontextualised. Whilst Life and Love does not extrapolate out of the letters themselves to create a cohesive narrative as is the case with works by historians, such as Joachim Schlör, Esther Saraga, Shirli Gilbert and others, instead opting for translated and transcribed sources, it does so largely successfully through utilising the words of the author, Marie Bader (even crediting her as the author.) The volume clearly remarks in the initial ‘Editors’ note’ that it contains only selected letters, and that these have further been shortened to avoid repetitions and ‘details not essential for the main story’ (p.19). Furthermore, the editors note that such omissions have not been identified as not to break the flow of the letters as they appear in the volume. Whilst this reviewer fully understands the need for such edits and omissions to ensure the letters viability as a coherent narrative, such changes make the work perhaps less useful for the historian wishing to seriously quote from Ottevanger and Láníček’s edited collection, as one cannot be sure to what extent such passages have been altered. This minor critique aside, Marie Bader’s letters constitute an emotional retelling of one woman’s experience of Nazi occupation and oppression. The reader cannot help but be moved by her loving words for Ernst and her determination to tackle the reality of her existence in the city. Whilst previously dismissed as too partisan and lacking in use for historians, letters are seeing a surge in use in recent years. Letter collections, like those discovered by the Ottevangers in 2008, exist in attics and garages across the world, stored in suitcases and cardboard boxes long since forgotten about. Life and Love therefore represents not only a well researched and detailed account of the epistolary characteristics of one woman but the tip of the iceberg for private collections of correspondence emerging from the past.