New Children’s Book! How long did it take to create Natalie and the Nazi Soldiers?
My new (and first) children's book is out! May I present: Natalie and the Nazi Soldiers, the story of a hidden child in France during the Holocaust, based on my mother-in-law's life. How long did it take to write? Create? Publish? I know I'll be asked this question in interviews or even in ordinary conversations. [...]
Tykocin – Where the Simple Baroque Synagogue of 1642 is the Lone Survivor of Centuries of Jewish Life
Meet the town of Tykocin in northeast Poland, a shtetl if there ever was one. Tykocin is pretty much as it was in August 1941, when German Einsatzgruppen obliterated its entire Jewish population of about 2,000 people by shooting them into massive pits dug out in the adjacent forest of Lupochowo. They murdered them after inflicting all kinds of [...]
The Chilling Legacy of Jedwabne: When Neighbors Murder Neighbors
This low stone wall marks the circumference of the barn in Jedwabne, where more than 300 Jews were burned to death in July 1941. After our visit to the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery, the first stop on our tour of Holocaust sites in Poland was the little town of Jedwabne, a [...]
The Warsaw Jewish Cemetery Makes More Than a Century of Vibrant Jewish Life Tangible
Our November tour of the sites of Jewish history and the Holocaust in Poland and Lithuania began with a visit to the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery. With more than 250,000 marked graves, plus two mass graves from the 1940s Warsaw ghetto, it is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries still in use today. A grave from 2009 My [...]
Dad Was an Avid Letter Writer. How to Begin Making Something of his Letters.
Looping back to the beginning is a good way to end. Since I began this series of blog posts on turning letters into stories with How to Transform a Father’s WWII Letters into a Fascinating Story – Begin Writing Family History with these 5 Tips, I'll end with another query regarding a father's letters. After my talk on writing [...]
What to Do When You Don’t Have Enough Information about a Fascinating Letter But Still Want to Use it in a Story
Civil War Letter (source: familytree.com) When researching family history, you might come across a letter that you find utterly fascinating. But you don't know much, if anything, about the person who wrote it. This sends you on a quest to find out more about the letter writer. You do a search. You find out some stuff, but not [...]