Magda Hellinger and Maya Lee with David Brewster

Magda Hellinger was deported to Auschwitz on the second transport from Slovakia in March 1942, at the age of twenty-five. She was one of the very few to survive over three years in concentration camps. During her time in Auschwitz-Birkenau she held various prisoner functionary positions and had direct dealings with prominent SS personnel, using her unique position to save hundreds of lives.

Maya Lee is the daughter of Magda Hellinger. She is an accomplished businesswoman and fundraiser with several nonprofit organizations. After coauthoring an autobiography of her Holocaust-survivor husband, she encouraged her mother to document her own story. Maya subsequently conducted wide-ranging research to fill out her mother’s story. The Nazis Knew My Name is the result.

David Brewster is a Melbourne-based freelance writer whose work is centered on helping memoirists tell their stories. David’s published works include Scattered Pearls, cowritten with Sohila Zanjani, and Around the Grounds, cowritten with Peter Newlinds.