Hotel Bolivia: The Culture of Memory in a Refuge from Nazism by Leo Spitzer, 1998

"An evocative, thoughtful, and otherwise impressive combination of memoir, oral history, and reflection on the nature of memory by a child of Viennese Jews who immigrated in 1939 to the exotic, landlocked South American country." from Kirkus Review

Leo Spitzer, a historian, was born in Bolivia in 1939 shortly after his parents escaped from Vienna, Austria. This book is a combination of memoir and history, a fascinating and very informative portrait of a Jewish community that numbered more than 10,000 predominantly German and Austrian refugees right before and during World War II.

Spitzer’s first chapter, called “Desperate Departure,” is a concise, interesting and valuable historical survey of Austria and World War II which provides a rich context for the situation of Austria’s Jewish citizens. He demonstrates how difficult it was to get out: countries had quotas, there was much bureaucratic paperwork, and ports started closing. The author’s family ended up fleeing to Bolivia when his mother’s younger sister’s former boyfriend, who had managed to get to Bolivia, offered to get a visa for her and for her parents if she promised to marry him when she got there. Once she arrived in Bolivia, she applied for visas to bring more family members over.

Living in Bolivia was not easy for the new immigrants. Its population was mostly indigenous Indian. La Paz, the major city, was at an altitude of over 13,000 feet which made many of them sick. At lower altitudes the tropics were not hospitable either, and because getting from one place to another was difficult, smaller towns were isolated from each other. In addition, the Bolivian government was unstable and the refugees encountered some latent anti-Semitism.

But the refugees made a life for themselves there, recreating, as best they could, the European culture they had left behind. For example they opened coffee houses, bakeries, stores selling European style clothes, and held chamber music concerts and evenings of cabaret theater. Spitzer has wonderful memories of going to the Austrian Club with his parents each Sunday where they would socialize with other refugees, all speaking in German, and he would delight in having a “typical” Austrian meal. He also notes that the Austrian/German Jewish community established a community center to minister to their needs as well as a school, Escuela Boliviana-Israelita, where the author was a pupil. Teachers were refugees who taught a largely European-style curriculum.

Spitzer has an informative chapter called “Buena Tierra” the name of a doomed agricultural community that was funded partly by the American Joint Distribution Committee and partly by the mining tycoon and Bolivian resident Moritz (Maurizio) Hochschild. He explains in detail how the plan emerged, what its goals were, and why it failed.

Hotel Bolivia was the name many refugees called their new country. They clung to each other, didn’t really work at assimilating, and once the war was over most left. Some had family who had immigrated elsewhere and they went to join them; others saw better opportunities in countries that did not feel so “foreign.”  In 1950 when Spitzer was 10 years old his family left for America where his mother’s sister had already settled. Despite the hard times they’d experienced living in Bolivia, when Spitzer conducted interviews with those who left, he found they all looked back at the years in Bolivia as good years. After all, they had escaped a terrible fate.

This memoir includes photos and reproductions of documents, a Preface and a Postscript by the author, chapter end notes supplying information about sources, a section called "Personal Sources" which is list of all of the people Spitzer interviewed, and an Index.

To read an article about the history of the Jewish refugees in Bolivia, click here.

People
Family on father’s side
Leopold Spitzer – married to Lena
    Jeno (Eugene) Spitzer – son of Leopold and Lena; married to Rose
        Leo Spitzer – son of Eugene and Rose; married to Marianne (Manon) Hirsch; author
            Alexander, Oliver, Gabriel - children of Leo and Marianne
        Elly Spitzer Shapiro – daughter of Eugene and Rose
        Tony Spitzer – son of Eugene and Rose
        Carl – son of Eugene and Rose
            Mindy, Erik, Jessica - children of Leo Spitzer's siblings (not clear which child belongs to which parent)

    Kathe Spiegler – Eugene’s half-sister
    Gisi  – Eugene’s half-sister; married to Leopold Kohn
        Frieda Kohn Wolfinger – daughter of Gisi and Leopold
        Rosi Kohn - daughter of Gisi and Leopold
        Hilde Kohn – daughter of Gisi and Leopold
        Ferry Kohn– son of Gisi and Leopold
         
Family on mother’s side
Nathan Wolfinger – married Bertha
    Regi Wolfinger – married Ernst Frankl
        George Frankl
    Rose Wolfinger - married Jeno (Rose) Spitzer; parents of author (see above)
    Julius Wolfinger - relationship not clear
    Ella Wolfinger - relationship not clear
   
    Sigi Schneider – Rose’s cousin
Ida – Rose’s aunt
    Dolfi Schneider – Ida’s son

Friends, acquaintances, and sources
Simon Aizencang (Eisenzang)
Marek Ajke
Susana Goldbaum de Ajke
M.S. Aspis
Louisa Saperstein Badner
Aron Balbaryski
Jacabo Blankitny
Eduard and Trude Blumberg
Walter Blumenau
Otto Braun
Alfred Brecher
Ludwig Capauner
Alexander Deutsch
Stephen Fisch
Naftali Fischzang
Walter E. Fried
Salo Frischman
Max Gans
Susan Gara-Frei
Jaime Gottleib
Werner Guttentag
Eva Renata Guttentag
Enrique Ellinger (relative of Mauricio Hochschild)
Trude Hassberg
Otto and Gisi Helfer
Ilse Herz
Herman Hirsch
Moritz (Mauricio) Hochschild
Hans Homburger
Marcos Iberkleid
Heinz Jordan
Hans Jungstein
Fritz, Ernst, and Heinz Kalmar
Mia Kalmar
Alicia Kavlin
Walter and Stefi Kudelka
Graciela “Leli” Kudelka
Hans Kulka
Rosl Kupferstein
Heini and Liesl Lizczenko
F.D. Lucas
Heinz Markstein
Eva Markus
Julio Meier
Samuel Mejer
Heinrich Neumann
Josef Pasternak
H. Peiser
Heinz and Hanni Reigler Pinshower
Theresa Blau Rechnitzer
Lizi Rosenfeldt
Werner Schein
Egon Schwarz
Renata Schwarz
Werner Selo
Gunter and Susi Siemons
Andres Simon
Abel Solis
Max Sommer
Bruno Stroheim
Fiszel Szwerdszarf
Egon Taus
Ursula Lowenstein Taus
Erna Terrel
Alfredo Weinhaber
Guillermo Wiener
Lotte Weisz
Manfred Wihl

Places and Institutions
Rechnitz, Austria
Vienna, Austria
Le Paz, Bolivia
Buena Tierra Agricultural Colony, Bolivia
Cochabamba, Bolivia
Sucre, Bolivia
Comunidad Israelita, Bolivia
Circulo Israelita, Bolivia,
Escuela Boliviana-Israelita, Bolivia

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

Family Matters: Sam, Jennie and the Kids by Burton Bernstein, 1982

"Family Matters is an endearing and intimate portrait of a close-knit Jewish family..." from an article by Bill Gladstone about memoirs by Jewish writers published in the Canadian Jewish News, October 2010

This engaging memoir written by the younger brother of the composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein is the classic story of immigrants making a life in America. The focus is on Sam and Jennie Bernstein, the immigrant parents of Leonard, Shirley and the author, Burton.  Burton Bernstein has divided his story into two halves: the title of Part I is Sam and Jennie. Part II is called The Kids.

Bernstein starts the story back in Ukraine before Sam and Jennie met. Sam’s parents wanted him to become a scholar of the Talmud, but when he saw an opportunity as a teenager, he ran away to America. Jennie’s family was very poor; her parents expected that going to America would improve their living conditions and their prospects.  Sam got right to work cleaning fish in the Fulton Fish Market, but restless and ambitious, he soon found a better job selling beauty and hair products and eventually moved to the Boston, Massachusetts area where he met Jennie.

Bernstein has wonderful descriptions of their wedding and vivid narrations of the early difficult years of their marriage. Sam eventually started his own beauty and hair products business and did very well, but life wasn’t easy for him. He was always worried about money even when he was doing well, and his moods would darken also when he fretted over the direction his children’s lives were taking.

Part II, about Sam and Jennie’s growing family, spends, understandably, the lion’s share of the narration on their gifted son Leonard.  Sam was opinionated, stubborn and upset at his oldest son’s obsession with music. This was not a career option as far as he was concerned; his idea of a musician was a “klezmer,” an itinerant shtetl musician. He didn’t come to America and build up a thriving business to see his child have that kind of a future.

Although Sam never got over the fact that none of his children were interested in the family business, what they called his "fourth child," he eventually was won over by Leonard Bernstein’s growing success and fame. The author describes with animation Leonard Bernstein’s big break: the November 1942 Carnegie Hall concert where on short notice he took over for an ailing Bruno Walter, his family in attendance in the conductor’s box. At Leonard Bernstein’s insistence Sam traveled to Moscow to watch his son conduct and was reunited with a brother and a nephew he hadn’t seen since he’d left Ukraine as a teenager. Bernstein sensitively describes the irreconcilable generational divide in this immigrant family. Although this is a story of a family with a very famous son, its concerns are the concerns of many families of immigrants and their American born children.

To go to a virtual exhibit created by the Library of Congress about Jewish immigration to America, click here.
(Thanks to Bill Gladstone and Avotenu for calling this memoir to my attention.)

People
Author's family on his father's side
Bazalel Bernstein
        Yehuda (Yudel) Bernstein – Bazelel’s grandson; married Dinah Malamud
            Samuel Joseph (first named Ysroel Yehuda) – son of Yehuda and Dinah; married Jennie Resnick
                Leonard (changed from Louis)  Bernstein – son of Samuel and Jennie; married Felicia Montealegre Cohn
                    Jamie, Alexander, Nina – children of Leonard and Felicia
                Shirley – daughter of Samuel and Jennie
                Burton Bernstein – son of Samuel and Jennnie; married to Ellen (divorced); author
                    Karen and Michael - children of Burton
            Khaye (Clara)  – daughter of Yehuda and Dinah
            Sura-Rivka – daughter of Yehuda and Dinah; married Srulik Zvainboim
                Mikhoel – son of Sura-Rivka and Srulik; married Lena Neishtat
                    Aleksandr – son of Mikhoel and Lena
                Meir, Bezalel, Mendel; sons of Sura-Rivka and Srulik
            Shlomo (Semyon) Bernstein – son of Yehuda and Dinah; married to Fenye
                Aleksandr  Bernstein – son of Shlomo and Fenye

Hilda Malamud
    Dina- daughter of Hilda; married Yehuda Bernstein
    Herschel Malamud (Harry Levy in America) – son of Hilda; married Polly Kleiman
    Shlomo – son of Hilda
       
        Abraham Malamud (Miller) – Samuel’s first cousin; married Annie
        Blanche Brenner – a cousin
Roy Cohn – father of Felicia Montealegre Cohn

Author’s family on his mother’s side
Eliezer Zorfas – married to Charna
    Perel (Pearl) Zorfas – daughter of Eliezer and Charna; married to Simcha (Samuel) Resnick
        Charna (Jennie) – daughter of Simcha and Perel
        Malka Leah (Elizabeth) – daughter of Simcha and Perel
        Yosef (Joseph) – son of Simcha and Perel
        Louis – son of Samuel and Pearl
        Bertha – daughter of Samuel and Pearl
        Dorothy – daughter of Samuel and Pearl

David Resnick – brother to Simcha

Friends and Acquaintances
Victor Alpert
Moris CitrinIsadore Finkelstein
Morris Finn
Berthold, Max,and Milton Frankel
Elaine Golden
Beatrice Gordon (related to the Finn family)
Adolph Green
George Hochman
Isaac Hochman

I.M. Kaplan
Jean and Thelma Kaplan – twins
Freida and Sarah Karp – sisters
Ben Marcus
    Grace and Sumner Marcus – children of Ben
Samuel Pearlman
Ruth Potash
Sid Ramin
Charles Revson
 H.H. Rubenovitz
Eddie Ryack

Benjamin Sacks
Daniel Salamoff
Dana Schnittkind
Meyer Schwartz
Rose Schwartz
Doris Smith
Rachael Stein
Bessie Zarling
    Harold Zarling – Bessie’s son
Ruthie and Nettie Zion

Places
Beresdiv, Ukraine
Korets, Urkraine
Shepetovka, Ukraine
Sudilkov, Ukraine
Mezhiritsh, Ukraine
Dnepropetrovsk
Novosibirsk, Siberia
Moscow, Soviet Union
Newton, Massachusetts
Sharon, Massachusetts
Chelsea, Massachusetts
Brookline, Massachusetts
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Boston, Massachusetts
Revere, Massachusetts
Hartford, Connecticut
Mishkan Tefila, Roxbury, Massachusetts
Hebrew Home for the Aged, Dorchester, Massachusetts
Congregation Adath Sharon, Sharon, Massachusetts
Camp Onota, Western Massachusetts
Singer’s Inn, Sharon, Massachusetts
“The Grove,” Sharon, Massachusetts

A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal 2009

" [Thomas Buergenthal's] plainspoken autobiography demonstrates that it is still possible for a Holocaust memoir to astonish." from a review by Nora Krug in the Washington Post on October 10, 2010

Thomas Buergenthal, currently American Judge in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, has written a moving memoir about his childhood. Buergenthal was born in 1934 to parents who each had left Germany because of the rise of Hitler and met and married in Lobochna, a resort town, in what was then Czechoslovakia. The family ended up trying to outrun Hitler, but did not succeed. When Czechoslovakia was invaded, they fled to Katowice in Poland which had a large German Jewish refugee population. There they expected to procure exit visas to England but before they could get out, Poland was invaded and they were on the run again. They spent four years in the Kielce ghetto in Poland, and when it was liquidated they ended up in Auschwitz.

A family of three up until then, they were now split up and Thomas Buergenthal, only ten years old, had to fend for himself. Despite his tumultuous childhood and the cruelty and deprivation he experienced, Buergenthal was a “lucky child” in many ways. He was street smart and kept his wits about him. He was blond and spoke German. He had adults in the various camps, even some Germans, who took a liking to him and protected him. And, considering that the odds were stacked against his survival, he frequently just happened to be in the right place at the right time and avoided annihilation.

His survival, in fact, was astounding. He was part of the death march from Auschwitz as was Elie Wiesel (separate post); after walking for days, those who survived were then packed into cattle cars and transported for days until they got to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Germany.  There he entered the infirmary where two toes were cut off because of damage from frostbite.

Shortly after the war was over he became a resident of a Jewish Orphanage in Otwock, and 1 ½ years after the war ended he was reunited with his mother who had moved back to Gottingen, Germany, her home town and had been searching for him ever since she had been liberated. The story of their being reunited includes the suspense of fiction. It involved many agencies including the American Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish Agency, and Bricha, and was aided by many people including Thomas Buergenthal’s mother’s brother Eric who lived in Patterson, New Jersey. To get Buergenthal from Poland to Germany across borders without the right papers a circuitous trip was devised where he was taken from border to border and handed over at each border to a different courier who would take him on the next part of his journey.

In a Preface Buergenthal explains that he is writing this memoir for his children and grandchildren who have never heard the whole story of his childhood and for those in the wider world who tend to reduce the Holocaust to a “neat” number of victims which he feels denies those victims their humanity. He feels it is important for eye witnesses to continue to publish their stories.

Buergenthal also includes an Epilogue about his work as a human rights lawyer. He is sure that his experience of human rights abuse prompted him to specialize in that area of the law.  He wants to continue to work to prevent what happened to him from happening to anyone else. He is convinced that we must be ever vigilant and fight against genocide. He knows that after the war he wanted to kill Germans but that eventually those feelings disipated. He understood that killing Germans would not bring back Jewish victims. He continues to ponder the question: Why do people hate?


This memoir includes a Foreward by Elie Wiesel, a war-time map that includes the towns and concentration camps important in this memoir, and photos of family members and places associated with the family.

To watch a very interesting video of an interview with Thomas Buergenthal talking about the writing of this memoir which includes photos of his family and scenes from the Holocaust, click here.

To read a 2/18/11 New York Times article on current thoughts about the need for new kinds of exhibitions at Auschwitz written by Michael Kimmelman, click here.

People
Paul Silbergleit - married Rosa Blum
    Gerda – daughter of Paul and Rosa; married Mundek Buergenthal; 2nd husband Leon Reitter; 3rd husband Jacob (Jack) Rosenholz
        Thomas Buergenthal – son of Gerta and Mundek; married to Peggy; author
    Eric Silberg (Silbergleit) – son of Paul and Rosa; married to Senta
        Gay – daughter of Eric and Senda

Erich Godal
Freda Cohen Koren
Richard Grafenburg

Places
Lobochna, Czechoslovakia
Auschwitz, Poland
Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, Germany

Zilina, Czechoslovakia
Katowice, Poland
Kielce, Poland
Otwock, Poland
Ravensbruck, Germany
Flossenburg, Germany
Patterson, New Jersey
Gottingen, Germany

The Diary of Petr Ginz 1941-1942 by Petr Ginz, edited by Chava Pressburger, published in English in 2007

"While the diary itself is mainly recitations of the personal and political events of his days, his art and the brief excerpts of his journalism (he founded and edited a magazine in Theresienstadt) and novels reveal a burdened though delicate heart, and a fine mind and hand that were never allowed to grow so much finer."  from a review by Daniel Jonah Goldenhagen in the Washington Post, May 13, 2007

Petr Ginz was 14 when he was transported to the Thereisenstadt concentration camp from his home in Prague and 16 when he was killed in Auschwitz. In 2003 a Prague resident came forward with Petr Ginz’s diary and exercise books that contained fiction and drawings which had been hidden and forgotten. Petr’s sister, Chana Pressburger, a resident of Israel who had also been interned at Thereisenstadt, authenticated the two notebooks and the handwriting and then served as the editor for the first Czech edition and subsequent translations of the diary.

Petr wrote in the diary from February, 1941 to August, 1942. He made his last entry two months before being deported to Thereisenstadt.  Even though his mother was not Jewish, his family observed the Jewish holidays and seemed very close to Petr’s father’s large extended family.

Petr’s entries are often terse. They frequently come across as merely a record of what he did or saw that day. In print he does not speculate about the war, bemoan his fate or that of his family. But in his recording of what was happening you know that he was fully aware. For example, one minute he is reporting about his report card grades, then he writes about his being fitted for glasses, then of his being elected class president, then about school pranks involving mischievous science “experiments.”  But on the same pages that he has recorded these normal childhood preoccupations, he also delineates increasing restrictions leveled against the Jewish community, he “mentions” an especially loud explosion of shellfire, and he describes witnessing the constant tearful farewells between his family and relatives who were being deported. The juxtapositions of the childlike and the horrific – we know how it’s going to end – are heartbreaking.

It is clear from the full life he led which he records in his diary as well as from his artwork, poetry and an excerpt from his fiction  included in this volume, that Petr Ginz was very talented. His sister Chava Pressburger has written a substantial introduction that fills in a lot of the details of their life together and Petr’s life in Thereisenstadt where he created and contributed to a literary journal. At the end of his diary she includes a few very moving entries from her journal describing the time leading up to Petr's being deported from Thereisenstadt to Auschwitz. And she includes end notes that explain some of the history of the war that Petr alludes to in his diary.

To read an abridged version of Pressburger's introduction, click here.
To see several photos of Petr Ginz and several of his drawings created in Theriesenstadt, click here.
To see a trailer for a 2012 movie made about Petr Ginz, click here.
To read a previous post of a review of a cookbook assembled by women in Theriesenstadt, click here.

People
Josef Ginz – married Berta
    Otto Ginz – son of Josef and Berta
        Petr Ginz - his son; author of diary
        Eva (Chava) Ginzova – his daughter; married Avram Pressburger; editor of diary
            Tami and Yoram – daughters of Chava and Avram
    Emil (Milos) Ginz – son of Josef and Berta; married to Nada
        Pavel-  son of Emil and Nada
    Victor (Slava) Ginz - son of Josef and Berta
    Herma Ginz – son of Josef and Berta; married Karel Leviticus
    Anna (Anda) Ginz – son of Josef and Berta
    Miluska – married Otta Hansel; a cousin of Otto
    Jirina – married Pavel Hansel; a sister of Miluska, a cousin of Otto
        Pavlicek and Jozka – the children of either Miluska or Jirina
        Hana Ginz Skorpilova – Petr’s cousin; exact relationship not clear


Friends and acquaintances
Wolfgang Adler
Gertruda Baer (ova)
Felix Bardach
Hanus Baum
Emil Bondy
Ivan Dusner
Jakub Edelstein
Richard Erlich
Edita Fischhoff (ova)
Ota Fiser
Rita Goldmann (ova)
Zdenek Hayek
Petr Heim
Martin Heymann
Renata Hirsch (ova)
Heinz Kaufmann
Lianka Kohner
Emil Kolben
Felix Lederer
Ervin Mautner
    Egon, his nephew
Karel Mautner (relationship to other Mautners not clear)
Milos Mautner (relationship to other Mautners not clear)
Karel Muller
Berthold Ordner
Harry Popper
Karel Reich
Slavek Stein
Tomas Stein
Elisa Stein
Hanka Steiner
Hanus Stern
Ann Storz (ova)
Vilma Tapfer (ova)
Mila Weisbach
Erich Zinn

Teachers at the Jewish school Prague
Jiri Glanzberg
Elisa Stein
Robert David
? Weislitz
Jan Beinkoles
Irma Lauscher (ova)

Places
Prague, Czechoslovakia
Theresientstadt Concentration Camp, Czechoslovakia
Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Poland

Memories of Survival by Esther Nisenthal Krinitz and Bernice Steinhardt 2005

Winner of the Sydney Taylor Honor Award for Older Readers in 2006, awarded by The Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee of the Association of Jewish Libraries

Memories of Survival is a book of fascinating artwork and narration created by the Holocaust survivor Esther Nisenthal Krinitz (b. 1927) to present to viewers and readers scenes from her life between the years 1937 to 1949. In the Introduction, her daughter Bernice Steinhardt writes that her mother felt compelled to tell the stories of what happened to her family repeatedly, even trying to write them out in English and Yiddish. But it wasn’t until she turned to art at the age of 50 that she was really able to convey what happened in a way that is suitably dramatic and emotionally engaging.

Bernice Steinhardt writes that her mother learned how to sew at the age of eight and was expected to become a seamstress. Because of her training and talent, she brought to her artwork a skill in needlework that she exploited to the fullest, using the techniques of embroidery and fabric collage to create each intricately detailed panel.

The panels narrate the story of the round-up of the Jews in the small town of Mniszek in Poland and how she, at the age of 13, and her younger sister fled into the forest and disguised themselves as Christian peasants. When they were liberated by the Russians, they lived in a displaced person’s camp where each of the two sisters, the only survivors in their family, married survivors. Esther Nisenthal Krinitz and her family came to America in 1949 and settled in New York where she died in 2001 at the age of 74.

This book is published under the imprint of Hyperion Books for Children. The School Library Journal has classified it as a Young Adult book suitable for grade 6-9, and on one level this is a picture book with limited text which makes it easy for children to read. Esther Nisenthal Krinitz hand-stitched a date and a few sentences to describe each panel and the book reproduces those captions for each panel in larger print  with commentary written by her daughter that fleshes out some of the details. However, like in all books for young readers, you do not get the larger complex historical picture.

The art work is also accessible to young readers, even though the panels are sophisticated works of art and would appeal to viewers of all ages. Though intricate in their construction, they have a primitive quality that recalls the Eden-like innocence of childhood. Early scenes from before the war recreate the bucolic setting of her childhood - family and community immersed in farm activities and seasonal Jewish holiday celebrations. But even as the evil of Nazism takes over, the vibrancy of the country setting is ever present. The Nazis were agents of death and destruction. They destroyed the Jewish community and tainted the landscape with their concentration camps (the panel that depicts the Maidenek concentration camp has almost no vegetation), but they did not destroy the artist’s memory of the vibrancy of the natural surroundings and the nature-centered human activity that stand in opposition to the unnatural, monstrous acts of the Nazis.

The family has set up an organization that circulates the artwork for educational purposes. To read about the goals of the organization and more about Esther Nisenthal Krinitz as well as to see all of the panels, click here.

People
Chaim  – author/artist’s  grandfather (It’s not clear whether maternal or paternal)
    Hersh Nisenthal – married Rachel Prizant
        Esther – Hersh and Rachel’s daughter; married Max Krinitz; author/artist
            Bernice – daughter of Esther and Max; married to Bruce Steinhardt; author/writer
                Rachel and Simon – children of Bernice and Bruce   
            Helene – daughter; of Esther and Max; married Jack McQuade
                John Henry – son of Helene and Jack
        Mania  – Hersh and Rachel’s daughter; married Lipa
            Harry and Rachel - children of Mania
        Ruven Nisenthal – Hersh and Rachel’s son
        Chana Nisenthal – Hersh and Rachel’s daughter
        Leah Nisenthal – Hersh and Rachel’s daughter

Places
The following places are all in Poland:
Mniszek
Rachow
Goscieradow
Krasnik
Dombrowa
Ksiezomierz
Grabowka
Janiszow prison camp
Maidenek concentration camp

The Diary of Mary Berg: Growing up in the Warsaw Ghetto 2007 An annotated, revised edition with a new introduction

"Unlike the [Anne] Frank diary ... [Berg's] Warsaw notebooks ... contain firsthand reports of humiliations, sufferings and killings that shaped the experiences of millions of Eastern European Jews as they were herded into ghettos before being sent to death camps." from a review written by Michael Kaufman of a dramatization of  The Diary of Mary Berg , published in the New York Times on May 18, 1986

Mary Wattenberg first published this diary in the United States in 1945 as Warsaw Ghetto: A Diary, shortening her last name to Berg presumably to protect the privacy of her family. She had just turned 15 years old when she wrote her first entry in October of 1939 from Warsaw. She wrote her last entry at the age of 19 ½ in March of 1944 when she, along with her parents and sister, were on board the ship that took them to America. Because her father had been a wealthy art dealer in Lodz, but primarily because her mother had been born in America, Mary and her family were able to survive in the ghetto without extreme deprivation, and to make it to America. Of course ingenuity and luck also  helped the family survive intact.

Mary Wattenberg at one point said that she had hoped to be a novelist. Her writing talent is evident throughout the diary where she describes in vivid detail the life of the ghetto and its social structure.  A lot of the time she is proud of what she reports. She writes that in large part the Jewish community pulled together and operated within the ghetto as a community, defying the Nazi orders when possible. They organized underground schools, smuggled in goods to augment the little they had, did what they could to help the destitute, kept each other informed by circulating banned newspapers and the news from banned but hidden radios, and created vibrant cultural institutions.

But she also reports quite candidly about the chasm between rich and poor, and who within the Jewish community had power and who didn’t. There were governing bodies whose members gave out jobs, jobs that ghetto residents hoped would protect them from deportation. Jobs went to those who were well connected or who had the money to bribe officials. But in the end, access protected very few. Many died doing back-breaking labor. Others were deported to the death camps when the Gestapo decided they didn’t need them anymore.

Wattenberg describes in horrifying detail the deteriorating conditions from year to year. Each year she wrote a special entry about what she did on her birthday, comparing the previous birthdays in the ghetto to the one she’s writing about at the moment. Much of diary consists of the graphic details of what she witnessed when she watched the streets from her apartment window and when she made frightening forays into the streets to go to classes or to meet with friends.

Wattenberg felt guilty that her father’s money and her mother’s status offered her family a measure of protection. Eventually they became part of a contingent of ghetto residents with American, British and South American passports (many forged or bought) who were exchanged for German prisoners-of-war. Miraculously, they left on the train out of the Warsaw ghetto one day before the start of the ghetto uprising which, though valiant in its effort, brought death to most of those who were still in the ghetto.

Publishing history: In the diary Mary Berg despairs. She wonders where the foreign correspondents are. Why is no one reporting on what’s going on? Where are the Allies? She wrote the diary in Polish in an abbreviated form so that if it were seized it would not reveal itself for what it was. S.L Schneiderman, a fellow Polish Jew already in the United States, met her when she arrived and helped her reconstruct her diary. A Yiddish version was serialized in a Yiddish periodical; the English translation was published in 1945 before the war was over and gained a lot of publicity. In the 1950’s it fell out of print. This 2007 edition brings back into circulation an important memoir written by a prisoner of the Warsaw Ghetto.

This edition includes the original introduction written by S.L. Schneiderman as well as a new and informative introduction by Susan Pentlin.  There is also a helpful timeline and an index.      .

To read an article that discusses the evolution of the publication of the diary and its reception, written on occasion of the publication of this recent edition, click here.
To read a short history of the Warsaw Ghetto and to follow other relevant links, click here.
To read a New York Times article published on 11/10/14 about the disposal of some of Mary Berg's effects click here.

People
Family members
Shya and Lena Wattenberg – author’s parents
    Mary Wattenberg (Berg) – daughter of Shya and Lena; author
    Anna Wattenberg – daughter of Shya and Lena
Abe – Lena’s brother
Percy – Lena’s brother; married to Lucia
Felicia Markusfeld – a cousin

Friends and Acquaintances in the Warsaw Ghetto
Edzia Piaskowska – married Zelig Zylberberg
Roman Kantor – Edzia’s uncle by marriage
Michael Brandstetter
Harry Karczmar
Bolek Glicksberg
Romek Kowalski - relative of Engineer M. Lichtenbaum listed below
Marysia Kowalski – sister of Romek
Edek Wolkowicz
Tadek Szajer
Olga Szmuszkawicz
Stefan Mandeltort
Misza Bakszt
Dolek Amsterdam
Mietek Fein
Manfred Rubin
Mark Unger
Lola Rubin
Mickey Mundstuck
Roma Brandes
Tatania Epstein
Stanislawa Rapel
Janina Pruszycka
Wladislaw Spielman
Stefan Pomper
Diana Blumenfeld
Michal Znicz
Aleksander Borowicz
Wladislaw Gliczynski
Franciszka Man
Noemi Wentland
Marysia Eisenstadt (daughter of director of ghetto symphony orchestra)
Vera Neuman
Zdzslaw Szenberg
Joziek Fogelnest
Kazik Kestenberg
Bolek Szpilberg
The brothers Leibermann (nephews of Max Leibermann)
Inka Garfinkel
Josef Swieca
Nina Wygodzka
Janette Natanson
Lutka Leder
Mickie Rubin
Kazik Briliant
Haniek Grynberg
Eva Grynberg – Haniek’s sister
Majer Balaban
Zosia Zakheim
Ola Szmuszkiewicz
Bronka Kleiner
Irka Bialokorska
Stefania  Grodzienska
Aleksander Minowicz
Max Bekerman
Zelig Silberman
Marceli Tarnowski
    Julia Tarnowska – his daughter
Kuba Kohn
Anka Laskowska
Stefa Musskat
Rachel Perelman
Eva Pikman
Bola Rapoport
Zycho Rozensztajn
Jurek Leder
Jurek Jawerbaum
Heniek Zylber

Jewish officials and other personnnel in the Warsaw Ghetto mentioned, some with only title and last name:
Colonel Szerynski, Hendel, Lejkin, Firstenberg, Commissar Szternfeld, Ganewajch, Roland Szpunt, Szajer (has son Tadek), Engineer Stickgold, Professor Hilf, Professor Griefenberg, Professor Engineer Goldberg, Janusz Korczak ( ) Engineer Czerniakow, Engineer Jaszunski,  Abraham Gepner, Vera Gran, Engineer Mieczyslaw and Marek Lichtenbaum, Professor Kellerman, Engineer Plonskier, Engineer Sapoczynski, Kohn and Heller, Rigelski, Dr. Poznanski, Kramsztyk, Gepner, Police Commissioners Leikin and Czerniakow, Rumkowski (Lodz), Dr. Miechowski (Treblinka), Mr. Rakow, Mrs. Minc, Police Captain Hertz, bakers Epstein and Wagner, Blajman, Mr. Przygoda, Administrator Chaskelberg, First, Erlich, and Markowicz

People with Mary in the Vittel Internment Camp
Gutta Eisenzweig
Jean Levy
Madeleine Steinberg
Hillel Seidman
Rosl Weingort
Adam Wentland

Those active in publishing Mary Berg’s memoir and their family members mentioned in the acknowledgements and in Susan Pentlin’s introduction
Samuel L. Schneiderman – married to Eileen Szymin
    Ben Schneiderman and Helen Sarid – their children
David Seymour – brother of Eileen Schneiderman
Sylvia Glass Goldfrank
    Walter and David Goldfrank – her sons
Norbert Guterman
    Moira Hyle

Places
Warsaw ghetto, Poland
Lodz ghetto, Poland
Cracow ghetto, Poland
Lowicz, Poland
Sochaczew, Poland
Okecie, Poland
Lublin ghetto, Poland
Treblinka Concentration Camp, Poland
Majdanec Concentration Camp, Poland
Pawiak prison, Poland
Vittel Internment Camp, France
SS Gripsholm

Annie's Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret by Steve Luxenberg 2009

A Michigan Notable Book, awarded by the Library of Michigan 2009 

Shortly before Steve Luxenberg’s mother died he was shocked to learn that his mother, who had always characterized herself as an only child, had had a sister. Luxenberg, a senior editor for the Washington Post, with the training and instincts of an investigative reporter, was profoundly disturbed by this revelation and was driven to learn as much as he could about his aunt and to see if he could understand why his mother would have kept the secret from her children her whole life.

It didn’t take the author long to learn that his aunt had spent all her years since the age of twenty in mental institutions in the Detroit area where the family had made its home. He was astounded to learn that she had died in 1972 when he was in college. Neither he nor his siblings had had an inkling of her life, her death or burial.

Luxenberg wanted to know what her diagnosis was and spent some time petitioning for her records as next of kin. This led him to do research on the history of mental institutions, and on the specific institution, known as Eloise, where she spent most of her life. To try to understand why his aunt spent most of her life institutionalized, he interviewed many professionals about the evolving ideas of mental illness and the institutions where those who exhibited a certain set of symptoms were placed.

The more he wanted to know about his aunt the less he realized he knew about his mother’s family. He remembered his grandmother as frail, his grandfather as taciturn. He had no idea where in Europe they had emigrated from. So he embarked on a genealogical investigation, searching for them in US census data, on ship’s manifests, in city directories, and in other public documents. He wanted to draw as complete a picture of the family as possible to see what he learned that might help him understand an immigrant Jewish family living in Detroit in the first half of the twentieth century. 

What was particularly helpful is that he found a cousin of his mother who had come to this country after World War II, having lost all of her family in the Holocaust. She had met Annie and was able to help the author better understand the dynamic between Annie, her sister (his mother) and their parents. 

Luxenberg’s background as a journalist adds immensely to the richness of the story. First of all, as his investigation proceeds, he is constantly figuring out the questions he needs answered. He uses his professional credentials to get certain documents not easy to obtain from the bureaucracy and he knows how to interview subjects – both professionals and family members. An interesting aspect is that he is constantly worried about his dueling roles of journalist and son. As a journalist he just wants to get the facts; as a son he wants to find facts that will exculpate his mother’s role in keeping her sister a secret.

To read an excerpt from the book that appeared in the Washington Post magazine in March of 2009 that deals with how his mother's cousin Anna survived the Holocaust, click here.

People
Author's mother's family
Nochim Korn – great grandfather of author
    Hyman (Chaim) Cohen (Korn) -  his son; married Tillie Schlein;
        Bertha (Beth) Cohen – Hyman and Tillie’s daughter; married Julius (Jack) Luxenberg
            Evie Luxenberg Miller – daughter of Jack Luxenberg and 1st wife Esther Golde; author's half-sister
            Marsha (Sash) Luxenberg Rosenberg - daughter of Jack Luxenberg and 1st wife Esther Golde; author's half-sister
            Michael Luxenberg – son of Beth and Jack; author's brother
                Toni Luxenberg – Michael’s daughter
            Steven Luxenberg – son of Beth and Jack; married to Mary Jo; author
                Josh and Jill Luxenberg – their children
            Jeffery Luxenberg – son of Beth and Jack; author's brother
        Anne Cohen – Hyman and Tillie’s daughter

Nathan Schlein – relative of Tillie
    Anna Schlein Oliwek – Nathan’s niece- her mother is a Korn (Cohen). Related to author’s grandparents on both sides
        Bella – Anna’s daughter
        David Oliwek – Anna’s son
        Dori – Anna’s daughter
    Mendel – Anna Oliwek’s brother
    Esther – Anna Oliwek’s sister
    Millie Schlein – Nathan’s daughter
    Medji Golde – sister to Esther
   
Author’s father’s family
Ida – author’s grandmother
    Jacob (Jack) Luxenberg – Ida’s son; married Esther (they divorced); married Beth Cohen
    Manny  Luxenberg – Ida’s son; second wife Shirley
    Rose Boskin - Harry and Ida's Luxenberg's daughter
Bill Luxenberg – brother of Jack; married to Lil
    Hy and Hank – brothers; cousins of Jack Luxenberg
Hinde Donofsky – aunt  to Jack Luxenberg
    Hy Donofsky – first cousin of Jack Luxenberg; married to Fran Rumpa


Friends and Acquaintances
Elaine Klein
Milton Arm
Fred Garfinkel – married to Barbara
Sid Frumkin – married to Marilyn; Fred Garfinkel’s brother-in-law
Ann Black – Sid Frumkin’s sister
Faye Levin Emmer
Molly – Faye’s sister
Jacob and Kay Robinson
    Irene Robinson – their daughter; married David Doren (second husband)
    Sylvia Robinson – their daughter
    Millie Moss Brodie – Irene and Sylvia’s first cousin
        Laurie Brodie Green – Millie’s daughter
    Marty Moss – Millie’s brother
    Julie Reisner
        Ellen – her daughter
    Sam Reisner – Julie’s brother
        Neil Reisner – his son

Places
Detroit, Michigan
Northern High School, Detroit
Eloise Hospital,(Wayne County General Hospital and Infirmary, Michigan
Hebrew Memorial Park Cemetery, Clinton Township, Michigan
Radziwillow, Ukraine
Brody, Ukraine
Lomza, Poland
Novomoskovsk, Ukraine

Living a Year of Kaddish by Ari L. Goldman 2003

"...Goldman, with his seasoned journalist's ear for the telling quotation...brings the stalwart regulars at his New York synagogue, Ramath Orah, to life with brio, as he does those who attend the far-flung congregations where he prays in Israel, Chicago, the Catskills, Paris." from a review in the New York Times by Esther Schor, October, 2003

Ari Goldman, a professor of journalism at Columbia University and a former writer for the New York Times, has written an engaging memoir about the year he said Kaddish for his father. Kaddish is recited within the religious community in memory of a family member. This is a story about the power of the age-old ritual and how it reinforces family and community ties.

Goldman writes about how comfortable he feels at his Orthodox synagogue, Congregation Ramath Orah, which was founded in 1942 by Jewish refugees from Luxembourg and is near Columbia University on the upper West Side of Manhattan. There he feels close to the spirit of his father who was also a practicing Orthodox Jew. He writes about how important his synagogue community is to him, especially those who are also saying Kaddish, and using his skills as a journalist he records many conversations with fellow mourners which contribute to a fuller discussion of the significance of saying Kaddish. When he traveled and sought out synagogues where he could say Kaddish, he describes the local synagogue communities and their customs.

On Shabbat he made sure his children came to the synagogue with him and observed him reciting Kaddish for their grandfather. He hopes his children will continue the tradition and will say Kaddish for him. Continuing the tradition of the daily ritual prompted Goldman to think about his father and his relationship with him, and during that year of saying Kaddish, he came to realize that in many ways his father was a role model for how he lives his Jewish life.

To read an interesting personal essay on saying Kaddish, click here.

People
Father’s family
Ephraim Finkelstein- author’s great-grandfather
    Nettie – his daughter; married Samuel H.L. Goldman
        Marvin Goldman – Nettie and Samuel's son; married and divorced unknown first name Mehler; married Teme,  his  second wife; author’s father
            Shalom Goldman – son of Marvin
            Dov Goldman – son of Marvin
            Ari Goldman – son of Marvin; married to Shira Dicker; author
                Adam, Emma, Judah – the children of Ari and Shira
        Ruth Goldman – Nettie and Samuel's daughter

            David Miller – author’s cousin
            Zalman Deutsch – author’s cousin
            Elise Goldman – author’s cousin; married to Murray
                Shanna – their daughter
            Ian Goldman – author’s cousin; Elise’s brother
            Donna – author’s cousin
            Debbie Kram – author’s cousin
            Debra Kolitz – author’s cousin

    Henry and Rochelle Dicker – parents of Shira
        Mordi Dicker – brother of Shira

Mother’s family
Tillie Mehler – author’s grandmother
    Author’s mother – married and divorced Marvin Goldman
    Mindy – mother’s sister; married to Norman Lamm
Minnie, Paulie and Bracha – sisters of Tillie

Friends and Acquaintances
Michael Paley
Eliezer Simonson
Irving Koslowe
Steven Friedman
Joseph Chester
    Leo Chester – his son; married Henrietta
    Randolph Chester – his son
Jack Nelson
Enrique Levy
Robert Serebrenik
Manfred Tauber
Jeffrey Kobrin
Barry Wimpheimer
Shamir Caplan
James Schmeidler
Allan Kozinn
Deborah Norden
Archie Green
Benjamin Migdal
        Ariela Migdal – Benjamin’s granddaughter
Deb Kovsky – married to Chris Apap
Yair Silverman
Sam Shachter and Evelyn Musher
Michael Frank
Avi Weiss
Ben Strauss
Philip and Pauline Sandberg
    Louis Sandberg – their son
Elie Spitz
Yosef Eliyahu Hankin
    Louis Henkin – his son
Steven Greenberg
Daniel Kurtzer
    Yehudah Kurtzer – his son
Fay and Reuven Weiss
Tibor Herdon
Saul Berman
Shimon Kurtz
    Mordecai Kurtz – his son
Simcha Bunim Cohen
    Eli Shlomo Cohen – his son
            Simcha – Eli Shlomo’s grandson
Norbert Abenaim
Rumi Gerard-David
Zvi Vorhand
    Moshe Vorhand – his son
Amy Silver
Bryan Bramley
Sam Domb


Places
Jerusalem, Israel
Congregation Ramath Orah, NYC
Har HaMenuchot, Jerusalem, Israel
Congregation Hechal Moshe, NYC
Hartford, Connecticut
Upper West Side, New York City
Great Neck, New York
Rosmarin’s, Monroe, New York
Camp Monroe, Monroe, New York

Kiryas Joel, New York