Aaron’s Leap

A multigenerational saga inspired by Bauhaus artists and the impact of the Holocaust’s lingering legacy on their children and protégés

In a Europe torn by war and revolution, Berta Altmann comes of age as a gifted artist and independent woman. Her search for freedom leads her from Vienna to the Bauhaus school, Weimar Berlin, and Prague. As she encounters the celebrated artists of her time, she engages in aesthetic and ideological battles that will prove to have life-and-death consequences.

Based on the real-life story of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis who taught art to children in the Nazi transport camp of Terezín and died in Auschwitz, Aaron’s Leap is framed by the lens of a 21st-century Israeli film crew that unknowingly unleashes the haunting force of buried history.

Magdaléna Platzová is the author of six books, including two novels published in English: Aaron’s Leap, a Lidové Noviny Book of the Year Award finalist, and The Attempt, a Czech Book Award finalist. Her fiction has also appeared in A Public Space and Words Without Borders. Platzová grew up in the Czech Republic, studied in Washington, DC, and England, received her MA in Philosophy at Charles University in Prague, and has taught at New York University’s Gallatin School. She is now a freelance journalist based in Lyon, France.