This book brings the suffering and sober account of the itinerary of a very particular category of Jews. Survivors of the Nazi extermination in Europe, they arrived in Israel, lived there – some, like Samuel Kilsztajn, the author of this book, were born in the Promised Land –, did not adapt and re-emigrated to Europe, as a platform to reach the American continent, the New World.

In Returnees, Samuel Kilsztajn creates a dynamic of coming and going between the characters and the structures in the midst of which they move, and from there arises, helped by the clarity of the writing, a story that holds, moves and makes you think about the stones that people find along the way. In such an unusual and cruel way.

And the words that describe this painful tour around the vast world are not measured by a supposed politeness: they are spoken with all the letters. Scream. After seven decades, the drama of refugees is becoming increasingly present on all continents. You have to clamour out for them.

Cristina Konder and Mauro Malin