Today we must take the most important thing that [Peretz] possess and that shines through in all his works, in all their times: his love for Jew and man. Also his universalism and humanism, his pity, and even his Jewish pity. … Today we must seek only that which will strengthen us, help set us on our feet again. And in the rich shelves of Peretz’s library we will find such curatives.
—Rachel Auerbach, August 1945, “Once There Was a King,” (on the 30th anniversary of Y. L. Peretz’s death); translated by and quoted in Anita Norich, Discovering Exile: Yiddish and Jewish American Culture during the Holocaust, 136-137.
