Books Authored By Our Speakers

by Deborah Long

"First Hitler, Then Your Father, and Now You"

I'm the daughter of two Holocaust survivors and in my memoir, I describe my childhood, adolescence, and adulthood in often funny, sympathetic, and compelling stories of growing up in a suburban Chicago household with a father who wanted to live the rest of his life as though he had died yesterday and a mother who wanted more than anything to recapture what she had lost. My mother and father's lives were tragically transformed by World War II. In accounts painstakingly recreated from genealogical research and travel, I trace my parents' journey from their ancestral homes in Poland and Hungary to their liberation from German concentration camps and finally to their arrival in the U.S. in 1946. My parents struggled to live with their past while starting a new life with little more than their own considerable wills to survive.

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by Irene Stern Frielich

"Shattered Stars, Healing Hearts: Unraveling My Father's Holocaust Survival Story"

In this searing, heartfelt memoir, I embark on an international journey to retrace my late father's escape from Nazi Germany, beautifully weaving past and present as I grapple with loss, intergenerational trauma, and hope for a more just future. "Like the layers of earth that accumulate from generation to generation, the layers of a family's story, constantly impacted by the effects of erosion and destruction, build, break down, and build up again. Eventually all the layers intermingle." I live in Sharon, MA, and my memoir came out in October 2023. It has won three awards, including gold from The BookFest Awards and the National Federation of Press Women. I am deeply grateful to the eighteen courageous individuals who helped my family survive the Holocaust. I carry their legacy forward through my book and through my multimedia presentations.

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by Hermann Wygoda

"In the Shadow of the Swastika"

The book is my father's memoir of the Holocaust, which he wrote in Polish in 1945 and translated into English in 1965. The book was published posthumously by the University of Illinois Press in 2003 and has a Foreword written by Holocaust historian Dr. Michael Berenbaum. In the Shadow of the Swastika is my father's account of his life in Europe during the Holocaust while posing as a Catholic Pole of German ancestry, and follows his journey from being a Warsaw ghetto food smuggler to commanding partisan fighters in northern Italy.

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by Alexander Silbiger

"Our Great Escape: The Story of a Dutch Family's Flight from Persecution, 1942–43"

In 1941 approximately nine million Jews lived in German-occupied Europe. By 1945 six million had been murdered. How did the other three million survive? There must be three million stories to answer this question. This is my story. It is not about the horrors of the Holocaust, but about the amazing adventure of a seven-year-old boy. It includes travel to faraway places and encounters with mortal dangers, for what is an adventure without traveling far and facing dangers? And, of course, it includes brave heroes and evil monsters. The heroes are my parents—the incredible courage and resourcefulness shown in this story are the stuff heroes are made of. In view of what is happening in the world today, I no longer want to limit the distribution of this story to family and friends. Perhaps in a small way my memoir can serve as a warning that such things can happen to anyone anywhere, no matter the color of their skin, the language they speak, or the god or gods they worship. We need to be vigilant at all times, so we don't become victims and don't become perpetrators!

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by Roni Rosenthal (2022)

"Where the Lilacs Bloom Once Again: Friddie's Story"

This award-winning historical memoir is based on Friddie's life—her survival during WWII and the Holocaust in Romania—and her extraordinary journey of resilience and hope. Friddie was my grandmother's cousin.

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by Roni Rosenthal (2024)

"The Lilacs I Once Knew: Friddie's Poem"

This award-winning collection features the original poetry of Friddie Stoleru, my grandmother's cousin, translated into English. Her poems reflect a life shaped by imprisonment and endurance during World War II in Romania, and they speak to joy, loss, fear, resilience, and the indomitable human spirit. After her death, our family discovered her letters and postcards containing these powerful verses, which she had shared with her cousin, Aurica.

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