Excerpts : Princess Marthe Bibesco Ana Blandiana Smaranda Braescu Madelene “Madi” Cancicov Nina Cassian Elena Ceausescu Ioana Celibidache Queen Elisabeth of Romania Princess Gregoire Ghica Princess Ileana of Romania Dora D’Istria Monica Lovinescu Ileana Malancioiu Queen Marie of Romania Dr. Agnes Kelly Murgoci Mabel Nandris Countess Anna de Noailles Ana Novac Oana Orlea Ana Pauker Marta Petreu Elisabeta Rizea of Nucsoara Sanda Stolojan Leontina Vaduva Anca Visdei Sabina Wurmbrand   Ana Novac “The Romanian Anne Frank” - Playwright, Holocaust Survivor, Exile, (b. Transylvania, 1929), living in Paris since 1969. Nationality: “I was born in 1929 in Transylvania (Romania). One good morning, when I was 11 years old I woke up to be a Hungarian citizen, without having moved to another place, another street, or even without having changed my shirt. At the age of 14 I was deported to Auschwitz, as a Jew. On my release in 1945 I had become again a Romanian citizen. That is why I have the greatest difficulty in establishing my nationality, other than from my identity papers which specified that I was Jewish.” (“Les beaux jours de ma jeunesse”, Ed Gallimard, Paris, 1996) Survival: “If there is little mystery as to how one was exterminated in the camps, one knows relatively little as to the “conditions of life” on a day-to-day basis. What would be like to be an inmate of that hole, five minutes before he would clap out during a fight for a bed cover, a dish or a spoon… How one was living in tattered clothes, hungry, weak, but preserving one’s sarcasm and aggression, an unimaginable vitality in civil life. That raucous laughter! This is perhaps what is missing from the posthumous documents! That grotesque, ferocious and blunt side, which sharpens our misery much more than lamentations or tears. All in all a strange planet, inhabited by strange martyrs (without any vocation of sainthood), with an exorbitant rage for life, controlled by a sole rule of law – the survival.” (“Les beaux jours de ma jeunesse”, Ed Gallimard, Paris, 1996) Biography: Ana Novac’s notoriety stems from her extraordinary journals written as a ten-year old in the nazi concentration camps. As a Transylvanian Jew in the Hungarian-occupied part of Romania Ana Novac is deported to Auschwitz and Pleszov, where she writes her impressions on odd scraps of paper found in the camp. Her Auschwitz journals are compared with those of Anna Franck . Ana Novac lives and writes in Paris. Bibliography: Novac, Ana, “Match a la Une” Novac, Ana, The Beautiful Days of My Youth: My Six Months in Auschwitz and Plaszow” , Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1997 Novac, Ana, “Les beaux jours de ma jeunesse, en Hongrie, Hollande, Italie, Allemagne, France, entre 1968-1970”, Julliard, Paris Novac, Ana, “Les noces de Varenka” Novac, Ana, “Comme un pays qui ne figure pas sur la carte” , Balland, Paris, 1992 Novac, Ana, “Un lit dans l'hexagone“ Novac, Ana, “J’avais quatorze ans a Auschwitz”, Presses de la Renaissance, Paris, 1982 Novac, Ana, “Si j’etais un bebe-phoque, ou les souvenirs d’un zombie”, Ed Les Temps, Modernes, Paris Novac, Ana, “Le complexe de la soupe”, Ed. L’Avant Scene, Paris Novac, Ana, “Cap sur la Lune”, Le Meridien Editeur Novac, Ana, “Les accidents de l’ame”, Ed Balland, ParisPlays: Novac, Ana, “Le grabat”, 1988 Novac, Ana, “Nocturne’, 1984 Novac, Ana, “La Porte”, 1985 Novac, Ana, “Un nu deconcertant”, 1970 >> Back to TOP