Irene Butter’s stir­ring mem­oir, Shores Beyond Shores, recre­ates the night­mar­ish exis­tence she and her fam­i­ly endured with Hitler’s rise to pow­er. Butter’s past was buried for more than forty years — until she was asked to speak on a pan­el about Anne Frank, a neigh­bor in Ams­ter­dam. We are for­tu­nate she did so, bear­ing wit­ness as she quot­ed Elie Wiesel ​“to pre­vent the dead from dying again.” Now, Butter’s mem­oir does the same, pro­vid­ing us with her indeli­ble Holo­caust tes­ti­mo­ny and evi­dence of the strength of the human spirit.

Through­out her sto­ry, Butter’s adored father did all he could to hold the fam­i­ly togeth­er. In 1937, the fam­i­ly fled Berlin for Ams­ter­dam; Irene was sev­en years old. By 1942, the Nazi vise in The Nether­lands tight­ened and Irene observed that with a Star of David on her coat peo­ple looked away or through her: ​“I was eleven and I was dis­ap­pear­ing.” Fol­low­ing a roundup by the Dutch police, the fam­i­ly was sent to Camp West­er­bork where depri­va­tion and the threat of depor­ta­tion to Auschwitz were con­stants. After eight months, the fam­i­ly was sent to the hell of Bergen Belsen. That her par­ents and old­er broth­er remained alive at Bergen Belsen was the source, how­ev­er ten­u­ous, from which the ado­les­cent Irene drew her strength, even as her body weakened.

At war’s end, Irene’s jour­ney took her to a dis­placed per­sons camp on the shores of Alge­ria and then onward to a new life in the Unit­ed States. What dis­tin­guish­es this remark­able mem­oir is Irene Butter’s inno­cence, her descrip­tive pow­er and her hope.