Correspondence with New York Times Reporter Patricia Cohen

Dear Patricia Cohen

In your article about Irène Némirovsky in the New York Times of April 25, "Assessing Jewish Identity of Author Killed by Nazis," you say that Némirovsky was "killed" in Auschwitz rather than having died there of natural causes, such as the typhus plague that was raging at the time.

Was she shot or gassed, according to your information?

Sincerely, Michael Hoffman

From Patricia Cohen:

She died of typhus a month after arriving. Patti Cohen

Dear Patti

If she died of typhus, why did you write that she was "killed"?

Sincerely, Michael Hoffman

From Patricia Cohen:

I don't consider dying in a concentration camp from typhus, untreated, as dying of "natural causes" as you put it in your email.

patti cohen

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