Return to the Place I Never Left

A personal testament in poetry to survival, resilience, and the complex legacy of the Holocaust.

In this harrowing firsthand account of the Holocaust, survivor Tobias Schiff displays the depths of human suffering, the capacity for hope and renewal, and the impact of starvation on the human mind. Schiff was a teenager when Nazis deported his family to Auschwitz from Antwerp, Belgium, and he spent the next thirty-three agonizing months in numerous concentration camps. This deeply personal memoir-in-verse explores personal faith, identity, memory, and trauma across a lifetime interrupted by suffering. Through his eyes, readers witness the atrocities and struggles that defined his daily existence, feel his tenacity while beaten and starved, and learn what enabled him and others to cling to life while surrounded by death. Schiff’s verse challenges dehumanizing narratives and provides an intimate view of the realities of life in Nazi death camps and the long-lasting impact of trauma. As racism, antisemitism, and Islamophobia resurge and continue to pollute the modern era, his pain--imparted through concise, rhythmic verse--serves as a reminder of our collective humanity and a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit.

Tobias (Toshek) Schiff (Poland, 1925-Belgium, 1999) was a Belgian Holocaust survivor. Postwar, he channeled his resilience into a career as a diamond broker in Antwerp before venturing into photography with a store in Brussels. In 1989, his journey through the Nazi camps was featured in the documentary Monsieur S. et Madame V. Committed to educating future generations and memorializing those who were lost, Schiff dedicated his later years to speaking in schools and published Return to the Place I Never Left in Flemish in 1997. Dani James is a native New Yorker, born to a Jewish mother and a Jamaican father, who grew up in Belgium before making her way back home. She holds a BA in English from Baruch College and an MFA in creative writing from the Writer’s Foundry at St. Joseph’s University.