And You Did Not Return

On February 29, 1944, fifteen-year-old Marceline Loridan-Ivens was arrested along with her father during a raid. They were sent to a concentration camp but were separated: her father ended up in Auschwitz, and she in Birkenau. "I will not return" - a phrase from her father that became a prophecy. It was engraved in Marceline's memory for life. Seventy years later, she writes him a letter, recounting her imprisonment, liberation, and subsequent life. This letter is an attempt to present the story of a father and daughter that was not meant to be lived. It is a memoir about the fates destroyed by the Holocaust, about the search for meaning and calling in the post-war world. The book was awarded the Jean-Jacques Rousseau prize. Marceline Loridan-Ivens (1928-2018) was a French screenwriter, director, and writer. Judith Perrignon (b. 1967) is a French journalist and essayist.