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Strange New World

Belsen's First Year of Freedom

Nadia Wheatley

$39.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English
Monash University Publishing
01 July 2026
The Liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on 15 April 1945 was hailed as a triumph of British victory over Nazi Germany. But for the 55,000 survivors of the ‘Horror Camp’, freedom brought new tragedy: a quarter died in the following five weeks. For many of those who lived, liberation meant barbed wire, military rule and a different kind of confinement.

Evacuated to a nearby army barracks – soon Europe’s largest Jewish Displaced Persons’ camp – survivors faced endemic disease, bureaucratic indifference and an uncertain future. Josef Rosensaft, Jewish political leader in the camp, called the first year of freedom ‘more oppressive to our souls than the years in the hell of Auschwitz and Belsen’: ‘we saw before us a new kind of world, cold and strange’.

Strange New World is the untold story of Belsen’s survivors. Refusing to remain victims, they fought to reclaim agency, build community and forge new lives from the ruins. Their history resonates today as millions of displaced people worldwide navigate the gap between rescue and true freedom.
By:  
Imprint:   Monash University Publishing
Country of Publication:   Australia
Dimensions:   Height: 234mm,  Width: 153mm, 
ISBN:   9781923451445
ISBN 10:   1923451448
Pages:   336
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming

Over a career of forty years, Nadia Wheatley has published a number of award-winning works of fiction, history and biography. Her most recent books are the memoir Her Mother's Daughter (winner of the 2019 Waverley NIB Literary Award), Radicals Remembering the Sixties and The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift (winner of the 2001 Age Nonfiction Book of the Year and the 2002 NSW Premier's Australian History Prize). Nadia is also the editor of Sneaky Little Revolutions, Selected Essays of Charmian Clift and of Clift's previously unpublished novella, The End of the Morning. In 2014 the University of Sydney awarded Nadia an Honorary Doctorate of Letters, in recognition of 'her exceptional creative achievements in the field of literature, her work as an historian and her contribution to our understanding of Indigenous issues, cultural diversity, equity and social justice and the environment through story'.

Reviews for Strange New World: Belsen's First Year of Freedom

‘Evidence of the human capacity to endure and to find hope in the darkest circumstances’ -- Seumas Spark ‘An astonishing book’ -- Ruth Balint ‘Harrowing, forensic and compassionate’ -- Linda Jaivin ‘Powerfully moving’ -- Dan Stone ‘Rich in detail and suffused with humanity’ -- James Bulgin


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