The Lion Seeker by Kenneth Bonert 2013 (a novel)

"The Lion Seeker is a captivating story, offering at times page-turning thrills and at others a painful meditation on destiny and volition."  from a review by Ellah Allfrey on National Public Radio 11/7/13

This vivid novel, although not autobiographical, focuses on a Jewish family from Dusat, Lithuania whose family members settle in Johannesburg as the author's family did. 

We readers follow the main character, Isaac, as he moves as a youngster from the old country and tries to make his way in the new. To some extent he has the same problems many children of immigrants have: parents set in their old ways whose expectations for their children create conflict between parents and child that culminate in anger and guilt. During their struggles we learn about the opportunities, the geography, the ethnic groups, divisions in social class, the politics, and the anti-semitism that confronted the Jewish immigrants in Johannesburg.

Bonert’s novel covers the years from 1924 when his fictional family immigrates to South Africa and takes us a few years past World War II. It also includes flashbacks to life in Dusat, including a devastating progrom when his mother was a teenager. A good part of the plot deals with World War II, especially with the plight of Isaac’s mother’s sisters and their families stranded back in Lithuania as the war is heating up.

Bonert creates a last chapter devoted to Isaac’s sister Rively that takes place in Israel after the war where Rively now lives. She meets a woman who had immigrated from Dusat who shows her the Jaeger report, written by a Nazi functionary,  that includes statistics of how many Lithuanian Jews perished.

Besides his deftly grounding his story in the realities of life in South Africa and the realities of World War II, one of the great pleasures of the novel is the author’s use of language. Throughout the novel we hear characters speaking Yiddish, Yiddish inflected English, English interlaced with South African slang, Afrikaans and indigenous tribal languages like Zulu.

This novel should be satisfying reading for anyone whose family immigrated to South Africa or who might want to learn about a Jewish immigrant family in Johannesburg, South Africa. In  his acknowledgements Bonert honors his grandmother who had immigrated to South Africa from Dusat. He also lists the sources he consulted including oral histories that have been collected from members of the Dusat Jewish community as well as the Jaeger Report.

To read an introduction to the Jaeger Report click here.
To read the Jaeger report click here.
To read an interview with the author click here.

People
Koppel and Hannah Raizel Bonert
   Pasey Bonert - son of Koppel and Hannah Raizel; married to Avril
         Kenneth Bonert - son of Pasey and Avril; author

Places
Dusat, Lithuania
Johannesburg, South Africa
Doornfontein, Johannesburg
Greenside, South Africa

The Flat (Hadira in Hebrew) written and directed by Arnon Goldfinger 2011 (documentary film) In Hebrew and English

"Borne on the generational ripples of a painful history, Arnon Goldfinger's 'The Flat' is a true-life detective story that uncovers much more than the tangled roots of its maker's family tree."
from a review by Jeannette Catsoulis in the NY Times 10/18/2012

This documentary, primarily filmed at the flat of Arnon Goldfinger’s recently deceased widowed grandmother, focuses on issues having to do with the Holocaust that he and his family only start to confront when they start emptying her apartment.

Goldfinger’s grandparents were successful German Jews who lived in Berlin, but left for Israel before the war. As Goldfinger remarks, his grandmother, who died at the age of 98, lived her life in Israel as if she were still a citizen of Germany. She visited Germany yearly and held on to many possessions from Germany, including old newspapers, letters and photos.

Those artifacts from her past open up a world that the author did not know existed, nor did his mother, who had been born in Berlin. Goldfinger wants to understand what he has learned, so he travels to Germany to interview the German daughter of former friends of his grandparents. On a second trip he brings his mother along and they also visit a cousin who lives in Berlin who fills in more of the family picture.

The movie serves to demonstrate what is now a pretty well-established point: that those traumatized by the Holocaust often did not speak of it and that the children of the second generation most often respected those boundaries. Goldfinger himself is now puzzled as to why he and his siblings asked so few questions about his grandmother’s past.

What is very interesting are the conversations in Germany with the German daughter of his grandparents’ friends. Pressing her with information he has researched about her father, he finds she has maintained a willful ignorance of her father’s past. On both sides (although for different pschological  reasons), Goldfinger found the trauma of the Holocaust buried. On both sides, a veneer of normalcy prevailed.

To read an interview with Arnon Goldfinger, click here.
To read an article about another German Jew who fled Germany and settled in Israel published in Haaretz, click here.

Family
Susanna and Heinich Lehmann
    Gerda Lehmann – married Kurt Tuchler
        Hannah Tuchler Goldfinger – daughter of Gerda and Kurt
             Arnon Goldfinger –son of Hannah; writer/director
             Noam Goldfinger – son of Hannah
             Yair Goldfinger – son of Hannah
             Gidi – of Hannah
             Orit Goldfinger-Mendel – daughter of Hannah Goldfinger
  Paula Lehmann Weinstein – sister of Heinich
     Manuel Trokes – grandson of Paula Lehmann
     Rani Eisenberg – cousin; exact relationship not clear

Places
Tel Aviv, Israel
Berlin, Germany

The Girls of Room 28: Friendship, Hope, and Survival in Theresienstadt by Hannelore Brenner, published in German in 2004 and in English in 2009

"A deeply sympathetic account of a group of concentration-camp dorm mates who stayed in touch years after their release."  from a review in Kirkus Reviews 7/15/2009

This book focuses on a group of young teenage girls and their leaders who lived in Room 28 of the Girls Home in the Theresienstadt concentration camp from 1942-1944 in what is now the Czech Republic. The author, Hannelore Brenner, interviewed many of those who survived and read journals written by them and others who were deported to Theresienstadt. She quotes extensively from many entries from these journals, especially from the journals of Helga Pollak and her father Otto where they reveal the heartbreaks and stresses of day-to-day life in the camp. Helga’s entries chronicle the life of an undernourished child who was frequently sick, but who dreamed about the future and worked at becoming a contributing and supportive member of Room 28. Otto Pollak, who lived in another area of Theresienstadt, wrote about his concern for the welfare of his daughter.

In an introductory chapter we meet some of the girls of Room 28 in the present and learn about their annual reunion. In subsequent chapters the author goes back in time and uses these girls’ experiences to describe the early round-ups and deportations to Theresienstadt and the daily life at the camp. Several chapters deal with the production of the children’s opera Brundibar, the sham visit by the International Red Cross, and the filming of  Nazi propaganda at the camp. Finally, the author follows the deportation of some of the girls from Theresienstadt to camps like Auschwitz and then the death marches the Nazis forced on survivors as the Allies approached. She ends the main section of the book with the liberation of the camps and the girls’ search for survivors.

The author efficiently presents background material about the strategy of the Nazis to present Theresienstadt as a model Jewish town. So in that sense, this transit camp was a better place to be than some others. The camp was overcrowded, and prisoners were hungry, plagued by bed bugs and lice, and many were sick and died from typhoid and encephalitis as well as other communicable diseases. But children and adults were also were able to take advantage of many educational and cultural activities. Concerts and plays gave the many gifted artists and musicians opportunities  to participate as actors, singers, composers and musicians. Audiences sat in rapt attention and many commented about how attending or participating in such events was a transcendent experience that allowed them moments when they could forget where they were.

Journal entries and interviews reveal that for the children there were two particular beacons of light in an otherwise grim existence. The gifted artist Freidl Dicker-Brandeis created a rich art program that involved the children in drawing and painting. And the decision to mount a production of the children’s opera Brundibar allowed the children to throw themselves into an exciting, enriching activity. First they auditioned, then rehearsed, and then performed. The opera, written earlier by the composer Hans Krasa who became a prisoner in Theresienstadt, was performed in the camp over fifty times to packed houses.

The cumulative effect of the multiple stories we read is powerful. Over the course of the book we have come to know the girls and their leaders, and their family and friends through their writing, and through the author’s research and interviews. One tragic story is hard enough to bear; multiply it by the number of prisoners we follow in this book, and it’s overwhelming.

An Epilogue includes contemporary photos of most of the survivors of Room 28 and short narratives. The survivors went on with their lives; they picked up the pieces, married, and settled in Israel, New York, California, Sweden, Moscow, West Germany, Vienna, Prague and elsewhere. Some, due to the cruel fate of politics, became citizens of the Soviet Union and for many years were cut off from the West. Like other survivors of the Holocaust, the girls of Room 28 felt that only other survivors really understood their trauma. And they knew that their past was better understood by the girls who had lived together in Room 28 than by anyone else.  Living in very close quarters under very difficult conditions in Theresienstadt helped them to forge strong bonds that hold those who are still alive together still.

To learn more about the book and a traveling exhibition click here.
To see a short clip from a production of Brundibar filmed by the Nazis in Theresienstadt as a vehicle for their propaganda click here.
To go to a very informative site about music and the holocaust where you find biographical sketches of many of the musicians who were prisoners in Theresienstadt, and which also has a lengthy discussion of Brundibar, click here.
To read a post on this blog about a cookbook put together by women in Theresienstadt click here. 
To read a post on this blog about a memoir written by Gonda Redlich, also a prisoner in Theresienstadt, click here.
To read a post on this blog of a memoir written by Petr Ginz, also a prisoner in Theresienstadt, click here.
To read a post on this blog about Madeleine Albright's memoir Prague Winter which has several chapters on Theresienstadt, click here.



People
The girls in room 28, including their leaders in bold print; others are family members not in Room 28 or not in Theresiendstadt
Rita Bohm – cousin of Lily Reich Wertheimer (see below)
Marianne Deutsch
    Peter – son of Marianne
Eva Eckstein – married Hermann Vit
Hana and Herta Eckstein – sisters of Eva
Hana Epstein
Eva Fischl
Leo Flach – married Elisabeth Kober
    Anna Flach (Hanusova-Flachova) - daughter of Leo and Elisabeth; married to Viteslav Hanus
        Tomas Hanus – son of Anna and Viteslav
    Michael Flach – son of Leo and Elisabeth
    Alice Flach – daughter of Leo and Elisabeth
    Irena Flach – daughter of Leo and Elisabeth
    Lizzie Flach – daughter of Leo and Elisabeth
Leopold Frohlich
    Marta Frohlich (Mikul) – daughter of Leopold
    Ruzenka Frohlich – daughter of Leopold
    Zdenka Frohlich – daughter of Leopold
    Jenda Frohlich – son of Leopold
    Jarda Frohlich – son of Leopold
Lilly Gross
Irena Grunfeld
Ruth Gutmann
Eva Heller
Marte Kende
Nathan and Ernestine Klein
    Ilsa Klein – daughter of Nathan and Ernestine; married Nathan Landa
        Eva Landa (Nimarkova) – daughter of Emil and Ilsa
            Viktor Nimark – son of Eva
        Leisl Landa – daughter of Emil and Ilsa; married to Franz Petschau
Hanna Lissau
Olga Lowy
Zdenka Lowy
Lenka Lindt
Ruth Meisl
Helena Mendl
Maria Muhlstein
Hermann Nath – married Elisabeth Kolb
    Vera Nath (Kreiner) – daughter of Hermann and Elisabeth
    Hana Nath – daughter of Hermann and Elisabeth
Eugen Kolb – brother of Elisabeth
Vojtec Polecek
    Bohumila Polacek – daughter of Vojtec
    Jiri Polacek – son of Vojtec
    Hanus and Hanna Lederer – cousins of Bohumil  and Jiri (exact relationship unclear)
Eva Pollak
Karel and Alice Pollak
    Handa Pollak (Drori) – daughter of Karel
Hanicka Pollak – sister of Karel
Sophie Pollak
    Otto Pollak – son of Sophie – married to Frieda
        Helga Pollak (Krinsky) – daughter of Otto and Frieda
    Karl Pollak – son of Sophie; married to Maria
Marta Pollak – daughter of Sophie; married to Fritz
    Josef – son of Marta and Fritz   
    Trude – daughter of Marta and Fritz; married Hermann
        Lea – daughter of Trude and Hermann
Freida Freud – paternal aunt of Otto; exact relationship unclear
Mimi Sander – Otto’s girlfriend
Gustav Deutsch – cousin of Karel
    Walter Deutsch – son of Gustav
Karel Ancerl – cousin of Alice
Ella Pollak
Ruth Popper
Miriam Rosenszweig (Jung)
Ruth Schatchter
Alex Schatchter – Ruth’s brother
Julius and Charlotte Schwartzbart
    Judith Schwartzbart (Rosenzweig)– daughter of Julius and Charlotte
    Ester Schwartzbart – daughter of Julius and Charlotte
    Gideon Schwartzbart – son of Julius and Charlotte
Pavla Seiner
Ruth Shachter
Laura Simko
Alice Sittig
Anton Krauss
    Marketa Altenstein – niece of Anton (exact relationship unclear); married Max Stein
        Ela Stein (Weissberger) – daughter of Marketa and Max
        Ilona Stein – daughter of Marketa and Max
    Otto Altenstein – nephew of Anton; brother of Marketa; married to Anna
    Kamilla Korn – aunt of Ela and Ilona (exact relationship unclear)
Jirinka Steiner
Eva Stern
Doris Stern – sister of Eva
Erika Stranska
Emma Taub
Ella Weiss
Eva Weiss (Gross)
Fritz Wertheimer – married to Lily Reich
    Hanka Wertheimer – daughter of Fritz and Lily; married to Abraham Weingarten
    Miriam Wertheimer – daughter of Fritz and Lily
Adolf and Wilma Rosenblatt
    Edith Rosenblatt – daughter of Adolf and Wilma; married Fritz Winkler
        Eva Winkler (Sohar) – daughter of Fritz and Edith
        Jiri Winkler – son of Fritz and Edith
        Pavel Winkler – son of Fritz and Edith

Others in Theresienstadt
Juliette Aranyi
Heda Aronson-Lindt
Adolf Aussenberg
Jiri Bader
Yehuda Bacon
Karel Berman
Dasa Bloch
Felix Bloch
Bedrich Borges
Hana Brady
Jirka Brady – brother Hana
Jirk Broll
Zdenka Brumlikova
Gustav and Ettel Heller
        Horst Cohn – grandson of Gustav and Ettel
Ottla David-Kafka
Peter Deutsch
Freidl Dicker – married Pavel Brandeis
Kurt Dreschler
Jakob Edelstein
    Arye Edelstein – son of Jakob
Alice Ehrmann
Paul Eppstein
Rosa Englander
Walter Eisinger
Zdenka Fantlov
Anita Fischer (Frankova)
Karl Fischer
Jindrich Flusser
Ota Freudenfeld
    Rudolf – son of Ota
Walter Freund
Anny Frey
Bedrich Fritta (born Fritz Taussig) – married Heini
    Tommy – son of Bedrich and Heini
Karel Frohlich
Norbert Fryd
Renee Gartner-Geiringer
Honza Gelbkopt
Kurt Gerron
Jana Gintz
Petr Ginz
Eva Ginz – sister of Petr
Franta Goldschmidt
Markus Mordechai Groag
        Wilhelm (Willy) Groag – grandson of Markus; married Miriam
            Chava Groag – daughter of Willy and Miriam
    Heinrich Fleischmann – uncle of Willy (exact relationship unclear)
David Grunfeld
Kurt Hacek
Hanus Hachenberg
Eva Herrmann
Alice Herz-Sommer
    Stephan Sommer – son of Alice
Leo Haas
Pavel Haas
Fredy Hirsch
Hans Hofer
Greta Hofmeister (Klingsberg)
Micha Honigwachs
Luzian Horwitz
Yehuda Huppert
Karel Huttner
Leo Jannowitz
Hanus Jochowitz
Bernard Kaff
Ilse Kalinof
Erich Kessler
Peter Kien
Gerty Kersten
Israel Kestenberg
Eliska Klein
Franz Eugen Klein
Gideon Klein
Rudolf Klein
Paul Kling
Paul Kohn
Jiri Kotouc
Else Krasa
Hans Krasa
Harry Kraus
Stepan Krulis
Ilse Landa
Rudolf Laub
Egon Ledec
Wolfi Lederer
Pavel Libensky
Leopold Lowy
Josef Lustig
Franta Maier
Thomas Mandl
Freddy Mark
Licka Mautner
Margit Muhlstein
    Maria Muhlstein – daughter of Margit
    Pint’a Muhlstein – son of Margit
    Eli Muhlstein – son of Margit
Benjamin Murmelstein
Zdenek Ohrenstein
Franta Pick
Marion Podelier
Walter Pollak
Paul Rabinowitsch (took the name Paul Aron Sandfort)
Gonda Redlich
Eva Reiser
Kamilla Rosenbaum
Miriam Rosenzweig
Dita Sachs
Milos Salus
Eva Seger
Rafael Schachter
Vlasta Schonova
Coco Schumann
Resinka Schwarz
Ze’ev Shek
Kurt Singer
Ruth Steiner
Edith Steiner-Kraus
Walter Stern
    Eva Stern – daughter of Walter
Felix Strassman
Oscar Strauss
    Leo Strauss – son of Oscar
Romouald Sussmann
Karel Svenk
Carlo Taube
Honza Treichlinger
Viktor Ullmann
Otto Ungar
Hana Vohryskova
Ilse Weber
Sary Weinstein
Ben-Zion Weiss
Edith Weiss
Fritzek Weiss
Helga Weiss
Magda Weiss
Fritz Winkler
Frantisek Zelenka
Otto Zucker

Others mentioned who were not in Theresienstadt
Adolph Hoffmeister
Ruth Iltis
Seppl Lichtenstein
Suse Pick
Dov Revesz
Zuzanna Ruzickova
Eva Schlachet
Franz Singer
Gita Torbe

Places
Hagibor Athletic Field, Prague-Strasnice, Czechoslovakia
Brno, Czechoslovakia
Prague, Czechoslovakia
Vienna, Austria
Kyjov, Moravia
Olomouc, Moravia
Telc, Moravia
Znojmo, Czechoslovakia
Chrastany, Bohemia
Kocise, Slovakia
Opava, Czechoslovakia
Liberec, Czech Republic
Louny, Szech Republic
Pisek, Bohemia
Olbramovice, Czechoslovakia
Achen, Germany
Hamburg, Germany
Sopron, Hungary
Novy Bydzov, Moravia
Bergen-Belsen, Germany
Auschwitz-Birknau, Poland
Kibbutz Hachotrim, Israel

Paper Kisses: A true love story by Reinhard Kaiser translated by Anthea Bell in 2006 (originally published as Konigskinder in Germany in 1996)

"Interweaving excerpts from their letters with information he gathered from relatives, ... [Kaiser's] gem of a story provides readers with a fresh, intimate angle from which to view the devastating effects of Hitler's war on the world." from a review in Publisher's Weekly 3/20/2006

When Reinhard Kaiser looked through a box at a stamp auction in Frankfurt, Germany in 1991, he noticed that some of the stamps were on envelopes still stuffed with letters written between 1935 and 1940, all addressed to the same woman, Ingeborg Magnusson in Stockholm, Sweden. Once Kaiser’s curiosity was piqued, his high bid secured the lot, and after he read the letters which were from 26-year-old Rudolf Kaufmann to the love of his life, he started on a journey to fill in the missing pieces. This short volume is the result of that journey.

Kaiser's quotes from the letters, and his subsequent research and interviews give us a wider context to help us understand the insurmountable obstacles standing in the way of a meaningful future for Ingerborg Magnusson and Rudolf Kaufmann. Kaufmann was a native of Konigsberg, Germany. A geologist with a PhD who had serious research ambitions, he had been unable to find employment in his field in Germany because of his Jewish background even though Kaufmann didn’t consider himself Jewish. His physicist father became an Evangelical Christian and had Rudolf baptized. But Rudolf soon realized that no matter what his stated religion, according to Nazi ideology he was a Jew and was to be treated as a Jew.

We don’t learn why Rudolf’s father converted and became an Evangelical Christian, whether his conversion was heart-felt or was meant to serve as much as it could as an inoculation against the rising Nazi threat. Rudolf Kaufmann never wrote in the many letters of any religious or spiritual feelings but at one point when he first learns that he has secured employment as a teacher at  Preacher [Rabbi] Hirsch’s Jewish boarding school in Coburg, a position which he ends up enjoying very much, he mentions that he does not want to have to become a Jew and he also says that he does not want to give up being an Evangelical Christian.

But as the years pass, we see through his letters that Kaufmann, whose lot has been thrown in with a group he knew little about, became more interested in Jews and Judaism. Once a Protestant German to the core, he now considered migrating to Palestine based on the advice of one his brothers, and with that goal in mind, started to study Hebrew. He wrote to Ingeborg that it upset him that the parents of his students were having to sell their businesses for pennies and he also wrote that many Jews have been very good to him, hiring him, housing him, and looking out for his welfare.

It is hard not to despair when reading the letters. With the benefit of hindsight we can see that Rudolf was an optimist and naive. Ingeborg and Rudolf met in 1935 in Bologna, Italy where he’d gotten a temporary position in his field. But his love for Ingeborg influenced his next choice: He decided to re-settle in Germany, assuming that the worst was over and that in Germany he would be closer to Ingeborg in Stockholm. Rudolf returned to a sobering reality, and as the years passed it was harder and harder to imagine a normal life as husband and wife, certainly not in Germany. And it got harder and harder for him to get out. He wrote that he sent out inquiries and applied for visas and positions in countries all over the world, from Australia to Persia. His siblings who have already fled try from abroad to do what they can. The last letters to Ingeborg are from Lithuania to where he has escaped and where he has managed at last to get a research position from the Soviets in his field. Now he confronted the reality of the effects of the war as it continued to engulf Europe. Over the course of several letters, five years after they had met,  he wrote to tell Ingeborg that at this point they must go their separate ways, stressing that, given his status, a future involving the two of them was doomed.

In the last several pages Reichart takes us through his search to find out as much as he could about Ingeborg and Rudolf, seeking out and interviewing survivors in Sweden, Germany and America. His search, in and of itself, is fascinating and what he discovered certainly illuminates the letters and brings these two lovers to life.

To read an article about the conversion of the prominent German Jewish Mendelssohn family, as a representative example of conversion from Jew to Christian, click here.

People
Walter Kaufmann – married Frieda Kuttner; second marriage to Else Bath
    Albert Kaufmann – son of Walter and Frieda; married Helene
    Hans Kaufmann – son of Walter and Frieda; married to Vera
    Liese Kaufmann – daughter of Walter and Frieda
    Trude Kaufmann – daughter of Walter and Frieda; married to Curt Teichert
    Rudolf Kaufmann –son of Walter and Frieda; married to Ilse
    Raimund Ludgwig Kaufmann – son of Walter and Else

Friends and Acquaintances
Hermann Hirsch
Max and Helene Holzman
    Marie Holzman – daughter of Max and Helene
    Margarete Holzman – daughter of Max and Helene

Places
Kronenberg, Germany
Cologne, Germany
Coburg, Germany
Freiburg, Germany
Copenhagen, Denmark
London, England
Amberg, Germany
Geissen, Germany
Bologna, Italy
Kaunas, Llithuania
Vilnius, Lithuania
Australia

Rutka’s Notebook: A Voice from the Holocaust by Rutka Laskier 2008

"More than 60 years after the teenager wrote it, the diary vividly describes the world crumbling around her as she came of age in a Jewish ghetto." from an article by the Associated Press published in the New York Times on 5/5/07

Rutka Laskier, a teenager growing up in Bedzin, Poland during World War II, kept a journal for a very short time - from January 19 to April 24, 1943. At that point her family was forced to move to the ghetto in Kamionka, so she hid her journal under the floor boards and told a Polish friend to retrieve it if she didn’t return. Her friend found it two years later and kept it hidden until 2006. Its tragic brevity mirrors Rutka’s life which ended in Auschwitz to where she was deported in August, 1943. (Note: Though often called a “diary,” the more correct term in English is journal – writing used not just to record dates and events, but to reflect on perceptions, feelings, and daily events.)

In her writing Rutka records events and reflects on her past, her present, and her future. One minute she is full of life and excitement, discussing her friends, both boys and girls, and, like many teenagers everywhere, she critically evaluates her physical appearance. The next minute, with no transition at all, she describes her terror at witnessing beatings and murders. She recalls in vivid detail the horrifying sequence of events that had taken place during the Aktion of August 12, 1942, called the Hakoah after the sports field in the neighboring town of Sosnowiec where the Jews were forced to congregate. Her family, sent to the sports field, managed a reprieve. She also writes about her job working in one of the factories owned by Alfred Rossner who tried to protect his Jewish workers. She is tormented by day-to-day waiting for she knows not what. One minute she’s convinced the war will be over soon. The next, she despairs and expects to die.

This volume of the English translation called Rutka’s Notebook which was co-published by Yad Vashem, includes very interesting short essays. Much attention has been paid to illustrate the journal and the essays with historical photographs both of public scenes and of Rutka and family members.

Rutka’s half-sister, Zahava Laskier Scherz, is the author of two of the supplemental essays. The first one is an introduction in which she describes how she came to learn that her father had had a previous family before he married her mother and that they had been killed in the Holocaust. She then writes about how she came to learn, many years later, that her half-sister Rutka had kept a journal and that it had survived.

In her second essay, called “The Three Lives of Yaacov Laskier,” she describes her father’s early years as a Zionist member of D’ror, an early trip he made to Palestine, and a return to Poland when he became ill. Resettling in Bedzin, he became a banker and was raising a family when the Germans invaded Poland.  She describes how when he was deported with his family to Auschwitz he learned that the Germans were looking for people with experience working with money. He volunteered and was transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp where he became a member of Operation Bernhard, which was set up to make counterfeit money. (Recently Operation Bernhard has been the subject of books and of the Austrian movie, The Counterfeiters.) She then describes his post-war life when he remarried and settled in Israel.

Another essay, written by Menachem Lior, a former Bedzin resident now living in Israel, details the search for Rutka’s surviving family once the the journal was made public. The next essay provides information about Bedzin and the Holocaust, and the last essay discusses journals by other teenagers who wrote about their lives during the Holocaust. The volume also includes an annotated bibliography of a selected list of teenage journals.

To read the memorial (yizkor)  book written to commemorate Bedzin's Jewish community pre-World War II, click here.

People
Family
David Laskier- married to Golda Zisman
    Yehezkel-Yosef – son of David and Golda
    Ester Laskier-Rodel – daughter of David and Golda
        Lily Rodel – daughter of Ester
    Zila Laskier – daughter of David and Golda; married to Josef Abramson
        Lipman Laskier – son of Zila and Josef
    Yisrael Laskier – son of David and Golda; married to Sara Prawer
        Yehoshua Laskier – son of Yisrael and Sara
    Gutsha (Gustawa) Laskier-Rottner – daughter of David and Golda
        Yosef Rottner – son of Gutsha
    Mania Laskier – daughter of David and Golda; married to Yitzhak Zilberscaz
    Emanuel (Moniek) Laskier – son of David and Golda; married to Bronia Oppenheim
        David Laskier – son of Emanuel and Bronia
    Yaacov Laskier – son of David and Golda; married to Dvorah (Dorka) Hampel; 2nd marriage to Hanna Weiner
        Rutka Laskier – daughter of Yaacov and Dvorah; author
        Joachim-Henius Laskier – son of Yaacov and Dvorah
        Zahava Laskier – daughter of Yaacov and Hanna; married Avigdor Scherz
            Yishai and Ruth – children of Zahava and Avigdor

Emanuel Laskier – relative, relationship unclear
Jonathan Laskier – brother of Emanuel; married to Else Lasker-Schuler

    Mordechai Hampel – sister of Dvorah
        Dalia Hampel Mercazi– daughter of Mordechai

Friends and Acquaintances
Natek Aleksandrowicz
Herko Brukner
Paulinka Gold Kleinlehrer
Hanka Granek
Menachem Lior
Luba Prawer
    Genia Prawer – daughter of Luba
Heniek Lewin
Salek Goldzweig
Niania Potocka
Haka Zelinger
Rozka Rechnic
Salek Saper
Heini Wajnsztok
Dasha Rittenberg   

Places
Bedzin, Poland
Kamionka, Poland
Zaglembie, Poland
Auschwitz, Poland
Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Germany
Givatayim, Israel
Migdal settlement, Israel
Magdiel, Israel
Rishon LeZion, Israel

Prisoner without a name, Cell without a number by Jacobo Timerman 1981

"Not just autobiography, or political analysis, or a victim's cry in the night, it is all these things. Timerman describes what he suffered in prison and what he thought, and how he and Argentina got to where they were."  from a review in the New York Times by Anthony Lewis, May 10, 1981

Jacobo Timerman emigrated to Buenos Aires, Argentina from Ukraine with his family in 1928 when he was five years old. A respected intellectual, television commentator and founding editor of the newspaper La Opinion, he was kidnapped in April of 1977 and was not released until thirty months later. He was never officially charged with a crime.

Timerman wrote this memoir in Israel after he had been released, stripped of his citizenship, and expelled from Argentina. The memoir is a narration of what happened to him as well as a discussion of the state of Argentinian politics and the parallels between what was happening in Argentina under the military junta in the 1970’s and what had happened in the 1930’s in Germany. He includes a fascinating analysis of the psychology of the fascist mentality that fashions Jews into perennial scapegoats.

Timerman tells us about his time in prison. He writes about electric shock torture, beatings, and solitary confinement. But what bothered him the most emotionally was when the guards and his inquisitors taunted him because he was Jewish. He remembered when he was quite young asking his mother after some local anti-Semitic incidents, “Why do they hate us?” Her answer, that they just don’t understand “us” stayed with him. He writes that the German Jews thought that if they explained themselves - for example they had lists of German Jewish decorated World War I veterans published in the newspaper - then the Nazis would see that vilifying them as a group did not make sense. Likewise, he questioned the tactics of his fellow Argentinian Jews for expecting that reasonable negotiations with his captors would lead to his release.

Logic and evidence didn’t work in Germany, and Timerman says it did not work forty years later in Argentina. He was tortured for not coming up with names of those involved in a Jewish Zionist conspiracy to rule the world, a charge presented as fact that no one could refute because the torturers, like fascists in totalitarian regimes everywhere, were not interested in refutations.

To read about Jews amongst the "disappeared" in Argentina, click here.


People
Jacob Timerman
    Nathan Timerman – Jacob’s son
        Yosel Timerman – son of Nathan
        Jacob (Jacobo) Timerman – Nathan’s son; married to Risha; author
            Nathan Timerman – Jacobo’s son
                Nahum Timerman – son of Nathan
Nehemias Reznitsky

Places
Bar, Ukraine
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Plaza Hotel, Buenos, Aires, Argentina
Magdalena Prison, Argentina
Puesto Vaco Prison, Argentina
The One District, Buenos Aires, Argentina
House of Troy, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Tel Aviv, Israel

The Terezin Diary of Gonda Redlich, Saul S. Friedman editor, published in Hebrew in 1982, in English in 1992

"The book offers a poignant, detailed record of the inmates' daily struggle for survival and their painful pretense of leading a normal life." from a review in Publisher's Weekly, October, 1992.

Egon “Gonda” Redlich, born in 1916, was deported from Prague to Terezin, the "model" ghetto, late in 1941 and started his diary on January 1, 1942. Having been an active Zionist, a school teacher and soccer coach he was chosen to be the head of the Jugendfursorge, the Youth Services Department, making him responsible for the 15,000 children who passed through Terezin. He was also a member of the Transport and Appeals Committee.

Redlich serves as an important eye-witness to day-to-day life in Terezin, including the 1944 visit by the International Red Cross that the Nazis had prepared for by staging the event. Redlich made entries almost daily and they are usually terse. He despaired about the living conditions and he felt burdened by his responsibilities, but he also expressed great love for Gerta Beck who was still in Prague at the start of his diary. Soon she joined him in the ghetto. When their baby was born it is heartbreaking to read of their excitement at his birth, their fears, their hope. The book includes a short diary written for the baby.

Redlich’s diary reveals what it was like to be part of the ghetto administration. The Nazis used the Altestenrat, the Jewish Elders Council, to run the ghetto, and he makes us feel the tension that they lived with every day. Ghetto life exacerbated fault lines amongst members of the administration as well as amongst the residents. Zionists had differences with assimilationists. There were disagreements when it came to sharing space between a group working on cultural affairs and others who wanted the space for religious observance. Practicing Catholics and Protestants who had been deported to Terezin because they were converts from Judaism or the descendants of converts caused dissension because they wanted to celebrate Christmas. And there was long-standing friction between German Jews and Czech Jews that erupted under the difficult ghetto conditions.

To the general discomfort and fear caused by overcrowding, disease, infestations, and meager food supplies, was added the fear of the unknown – who would be transported next and where would the transports be going? What was particularly devastating and what took its toll is Redlich’s role in obeying the Nazi orders to help fill transports with children. When the Nazis said they needed a certain number, it was his job to work with others to come up with a list.

It was agonizing for Redlich to be a member of the Transport and Appeals Committee. It didn’t take him long to realize that people did whatever they could to pull rank; some had friends in high places, some used bribery to buy themselves off of transport lists. Redlich himself was approached by family members and friends of family who asked for his help. When he couldn’t help them, they accused him of disloyalty. He did manage to exempt his mother-in-law and brother-in-law from being transported early on. But all these exemptions did in most cases was buy time. None of his administrative positions helped him from being transported. Gonda, his wife and seven-month-old son were sent to Auschwitz in October of 1944.

The Diary of Gonda Redlich includes extensive footnotes with rich in information including other sources to consult. Many entries refer to the Hebrew University Oral History Project and the Beit Terezin archives in Israel. There is a Foreward by Nora Levin in which she writes about the founding of Terezin by the Nazis and the role Gonda Redlich played in its administration. In the Introduction Saul S. Friedman draws a fuller portrait of Redlich. Also included are a map of Terezin, Bibliographic Notes, an Index, and a photo of Gonda Redlich.

To watch a short clip from CNN on a special Monopoly board created at Terezin that includes an interview with two brothers who survived, click here.
For an interesting discussion of Terezin, its conditions, and some discussions of health issues there, click here.  
To read a review in a previous post of a cookbook put together by women in Terezin, click here.

People
Max Redlich – Gonda’s father
    Egon “Gonda” Redlich – “married” Gerta Beck; author
        Dan Peter Beck– their son
    Robert and Hugo Redlich – Gonda’s brothers
    Wilma Goldstein – Gonda’s sister
    Bohusch Goldstein – Gonda’s brother-in-law
    Vitek Beck – Gerta’s brother
    Medah  Beck – Gerta’s sister
  
Carolina – Gonda’s aunt
Bertik – Gonda’s uncle

Eli Bachner
Stella Berger
Rudolph Bergman
Dita  – Stella’s sister
Leo Baeck
    Ruth Baeck – relative of Leo Baeck
Honzo Brammer
Fredy Hirsch
Jacob Edelstein – married to Miriam Olliner
    Arieh Edelstein – their son
Dominik Eisenberger
    Honza Eisenberger – his son
Walter Eisinger
Arthur and Rosa Englander      
Paul Eppstein
Nimka Federer
Ada Fischer
Desider Friedmann
Walter Freud
Tm Fritta
Ruth Gaertner
Willy and Manya Groag
Leo Janowitz
Franz Kahn
Egon Kisch
Heinrich Klang
Gideon Klein
Ota Klein
Sigi Kwasniewski
Egon Loebner
Karl Lowenstein
Walter Lowinger
Paul Morgenstern
Aaron Menczer
Erich Munk
Benjamin Murmelstein
Trude Herzl – married to Richard Neumann
Erich Oesterreicher
Sonya Okun
Edith Ornstein
Freidrich Placzek
Karel Polaczek
Ela Polak
Egon Popper
Fritz Prager
Dov Revesz
Kamila Rosenbaum
Igo Rosenfeld
Dita Saxl
Rudy Sachsl
Heinze Schuster
Zeev Shek
Willy Schoenfeld
Vlasta Schoenova
Berthold Simonson
Henrich Stahl
Richard Stein
Hanus Sylvester
Zikmund Unger
Giri Vogel
Robert Weinberger
Grete Wiener
Yaakov Wurzel
Gershon Zetner
Otto and Fritzi Zucker

Places
Terezin, Czechoslovakia
Olmutz, Moravia

My Father's Roses: A Family's Journey from World War I to Treblinka by Nancy Kohner 2006

"[A]n evocative story of three generations, a portrait of a lost age, and a loving tribute to her father and her grandparents, Heinrich and Valerie." From a review by Micheline Wander in the Jewish Chronicle, July, 2008

Nancy Kohner, born in 1950, grew up in Bradford, a city in Northern England, the daughter of a Protestant English mother and a Jewish central European immigrant father. Kohner was always fascinated by her father’s background. When she was young she did not know he was Jewish, but eventually she learned that he was and that he and his brother were refugees from Czechoslovakia who arrived in 1939. She also learned that her grandmother had died in a concentration camp.

After her father died Kohner methodically went through a treasure trove of documents left behind. Besides legal and business documents, her father Rudi and his brother Franz kept all the family letters they had received as well as copies of the letters they had sent. In addition, Kohner was lucky to have family diaries and family photos. In preparation for writing this book she also traveled with her daughter to her father’s hometown of Podersam, Czechoslovakia.

Kohner uses the letters sent back and forth between members of the family to tell their story. And she includes her own commentary which is a combination of her own feelings about and reactions to the material, her suppositions and her analysis.  Kohner’s grandparents had sent their children off to school outside of their small town, so she has letters to draw on from the time the children were barely in their teens. The first letter she includes is one from 1909 to Franz who has just gone away at school. The last letter she includes is from her grandmother to her sons Franz and Rudi in England, written July 12, 1942. She was transported to Theresienstadt on July 16. She was gassed in Treblinka.

Reading the letters provides us with a very intimate portrait of a family who were well-educated, cultured, German-speaking Podersam merchants. It is a valuable social history of the times. A fascinating section of the story is devoted to Franz’s service in World War I. Through the letters we get a glimpse of what it was like in the trenches and at the Italian front, and what provisions his parents were sending him. In his letters he sought to allay their fears. We read in detail about happy times too: Rudi’s bar mitzvah and Franz’s engagement. And many letters are about the business – and business problems during both wars having to do with limited merchandise and, during World War II, restrictive laws imposed on Jewish residents.

This book includes a very interesting prologue by Nancy Kohner’s daughter Bridget McGing who is a historian who became totally absorbed in this family material her mother shared with her. She explains that her mother lived with this material for many years and finally managed to finish the last chapter one month before she died of breast cancer in 2006.

To read a short history of the Jews of Czechoslovakia, click here.

People
Author's family on paternal grandfather's side
Moises – author’s paternal great great grandfather
    Abraham Kohner –his son; married Marie; author’s great grandparents
    Mann – Marie’s brother; lived in Nachod
        Heinrich Kohner -  Abraham and Marie's son;  married Valerie Herrmann; author's grandparents
            Franz Kohner – their son; author’s uncle
            Rudolph Kohner – their son; author’s father
        Eduard – son of Abraham and Marie; married Luisa
        Anna – daughter of Abraham and Marie; married to Max
            Hans and Victor – their sons
        Emma – daughter of Abraham and Marie
        Julie - daughter of Abraham and Marie

Family on author's paternal grandmother's side
    Jakob Herrmann – married Berte; author's great grandparents
           Valerie (Walli) – daughter or Jakob and Berte; marries Heinrich Kohner; author’s grandmother
                 Franz Joseph Kohner – oldest son of Heinrich and Valerie; married Edith Geduldiger
                       Dinah, Ruth, William - children of Franz and Edith
                 Berta Elise – daughter of Henreich and Valerie; married Adolf Girschick
                       Elsbeth Maria Valerie - their daughter
                 Rudolph  Oscar (Rudi) – son of Heinrich and Valerie; married Olive Britton ; author’s parents
                       Nancy – author
                           Daniel, Bridget McGing, Grace - author's children
           Oscar - son of Jakob and Berte
           Kamill –  son of Jakob and Berte; married to Friederike
                Heinrich and Elizabeth – the children of Kamill and Friederike
          Adele – daughter of Jakob and Berte; married Herrmann Mandl
          Franz - son of Jakob and Berte
          Anna - daughter of Jakob and Berte
          Karl –son of Jakob and Berte; married Else
          Ida – daughter of Jakob and Berte; married Otto Robitschek
    Anna Ehrlich – Berte’s sister
          Hugo - her son

Olga Krafft – Valerie Herrrmann Kohner’s cousin; married to Rudolf  
 Klara – Valerie’s Herrmann Kohner’s cousin; married to Alfred Kraus
Karolina – grandmother of Edith Geduldiger, wife of Franz Kohner
Marketa and Zdenka – aunts of Edith Geduldiger, wife of Franz Kohner
      

Friends and Acquaintances
Karl Kussi
Rabbi Rudolf Rychnovsky – married Marie
    Ernst – their son
Annie Wiener
Walter Mulstein
Friedrich Lowy
Rabbi Ignatz and Charlota Duschak
Rabbi Deutsch
Moritz Bandler
Victor Gruenwald
Anna Pick
    Hansi  and Suse – her daughters
Gustav Hirsch
Ida Hirsch
Alois and Emilie Kohn
Adolf Kohn
Wilhelmine Pollak
    Alice and Edita – her daughters
Moritz Popper
Hugo and Alice Muhlstein
Anna Stein

Places
Libotschan, Bohemia
Podersam, Bohemia (Czechoslovakia)
Saaz, Czechoslovakia
Prague, Czechoslovakia

Teutschenrust, Czechoslovakia
Bad Gastein, Austria
Habrovan, Czechoslovakia
Kolpenice, Czechoslovakia
Koldichev, Belarus
Baranovichi, Belarus
Tachau, Czechoslovakia
Bilin, Czechoslovakia
Brux, Czechoslovakia
Grafenberg, Germany
Piwana, Czechoslovakia
Pilsen, Czechoslovakia
Nachod, Czechoslovakia
Trautenau, Czechoslovakia
Bela, Czechoslovakia