The Tin Ring

Book excerpt: The Tin Ringis a moving memoir of love, loss and hope. This new edition has been published in celebration of Zdenka's 100th birthday. Zdenka's peaceful life was changed forever when she was sent to Terezin concentration camp. Here, she was given a humble engraved tin ring by her first love Arno. She survived six concentration camps, endured horrors the like of which most of us can't begin to comprehend, yet never lost the will to live. When Arno gave her the ring he said, 'That's for our engagement. And, to keep you safe. If we are both alive when the war ends I will find you.'The ring was the symbol of his love – a tin ring – that gave her the hope to endure unimaginable suffering and survive in the belief that they would one day be re-united. Zdenka protected this little tin ring with her life and with astonishing determination. Never falling into destructive self-pity, her compassion for other people, her sense of humour and the ability to take remarkable risks, are just part of Zdenka's indomitable spirit. Zdenka survived six concentration camps including Auschwitz, Gross Rosen, Mauthausen and Belsen – the worst of all. In the last chaotic days of the war in Belsen she crawled to a Red Cross post. There she was saved by an unknown British soldier to whom the book is dedicated.