A Haven from Hitler – Heini Gruffudd

Welsh book of the year 2013

This is a story of suffering and heroism, love and hatred, death and survival during the most destructive years of the 20th century in Europe.

Originally published in Welsh under the title “Yr Erlid”, it won the Welsh Book of the Year prize in 2013. It tells the story of the family of Kate Bosse-Griffiths, of German-Jewish descent, who fled the brutal regime of the Nazis and became one of Wales’ leading academic and literary figures.

In Oxford she met fellow Classics scholar and Egyptologist J. Gwyn Griffiths and they soon settled as a married couple in Rhondda where Kate established the Cadwgan Literary Circle.

Meanwhile her family, like hundreds of thousands of others of Jewish descent, suffered from Nazi persecution.

The story is based on hundreds of letters, documents and first-hand accounts by members of the family. They tell of the Nazi-inspired attacks of Kristallnacht, life under their brutal regime, efforts to flee and periods of imprisonment, and the horror of life inside concentration camps.

A Little About the Maker…

Y Lolfa is one of Wales’s most prominent printing companies with 50 years’ experience. A lovely, friendly company whose work is enjoyed by people across Wales and beyond.