One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World

Stella Levi and author Frank (What Is Missing) collaborated on this book via a series of Saturday conversations that took place over six years. Levi grew up on Rhodes, a Greek island in the eastern Aegean that was taken over by Italian troops in 1912. The neighborhood where she lived—the Juderia—had been home to Jews from the 1600s until July 1944, when the Nazis deported 1,700 Jewish residents, murdering 1,200 at Auschwitz. Levi was liberated in 1945 and spent years trying to find her place in the world, before finally ending up in New York City, where she still lives. Frank’s narration creates a sense of intimacy, where listeners can be part of the discussion and hear about Levi’s childhood, deportation, life in the concentration camps, and beyond that. How does a person start again after barely escaping the horror of so much death? Levi’s life as a survivor, wanderer, wife, and mother proves her toughness and determination. She’s a woman who refuses to be defined by the events of her life and instead lives life as she sees fit.