Petr is seventeen when he returns to his hometown of Prague in the spring of 1945.

He survived the Theresienstadt ghetto and the Auschwitz concentration camp and was able to escape from a death march, where he saw his younger brother and his father for the last time. Every day he studies the newspaper and goes to the train station so as not to miss them and his mother when they return. He can't wait for them in their apartment because a strange Czech family is now living there and Petr has been given a room in the Jewish community. He lives with Izák, who fought abroad during the war and is one of the few people who help Petr to find his feet again in a world that has become foreign to him. And then Petr meets Ilse and falls in love. But Ilse comes from a German-Jewish family in Prague and is to be expelled from the country by the Czech authorities.

In his novel, Eli Beneš authentically and vividly describes the loneliness of a young survivor against the backdrop of a Prague we no longer know.

Eli Beneš was born in Prague in 1976. After studying English, American studies and literature, he worked as a radio presenter in Prague, founded a label for electronic music and composed music for Czech television.

The German text will be read by actor Stefan Hufschmidt, the evening will be hosted by Christina Frankenberg (Czech Center Berlin).

With the kind support of the Gesellschaft für Bohemistik e. V., Czechlit (Czech Literary Center/Moravská zemská knihovna), Sparkasse Vorpommern and the Czechia 2026 project as part of the Year of Czech Culture.

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