Freud's Sister

Vienna, 1938: With the Nazis closing in, Sigmund Freud is granted an exit visa and allowed to list the names of people to take with him. He lists his doctor and maids, his dog and his wife’s sister, but he doesn’t list any of his own sisters. The four Freud sisters are shuttled to the Terezín concentration camp, while their brother lives out his last days in London.

Based on a true story, this novel gives voice to Freud’s sister Adolfina—a gifted, sensitive woman spurned by her mother who never married. It explores her life from childhood closeness with her brother to her love for a fellow student, her time in a Vienna psychiatric hospital, and her dream of living in Venice with a family, imagining a life often lost to history.