Loss

Several readers told me they gave family members a unique holiday gift: Motherland and a recording device -- with the hope that reading the book would inspire the relatives to tell their stories. Reader Lori McCarthy, who is working on a project celebrating family stories and traditions called "Keeper of the China" (keeperofthechina.com), writes, "Your book has made our little family appreciate the many branches of our family tree even ...

Frieda and unknown girl, October, 1939 Some of you have asked me to post the picture of Frieda described on page 10 of Motherland. Here it is and here is what I wrote: "On the back of it (the picture) someone had written "9 Okt. [October in German] , 1939. The woman is standing, slightly hunched...with one hand on her matronly hip, and her other arm around a girl of ...

My grandmother, Frieda Westerfeld, age 40, in 1938 One of Frieda's letters Trapped in Nazi Germany, my grandmother, Frieda Westerfeld, wrote letters to her family who had escaped to America and South America. Since I have written books about our family history, relatives have sent me those letters to archive. Here are a few excerpts from Frieda's letters written between 1938-1941: After she had sent both of her young daughters ...

My grandmother, Frieda Kahn Westerfeld (age 8), and her three brothers in 1906. She was killed in Camp Biaski in Lublin, Poland in 1941 at the age of 43. For descendants of the Holocaust, family history is one of the great losses. Most of us have few photos, documents or objects from the family's past. We have no storyline of history. We feel an acute sense of discontinuity, dislocation -- ...

My German friend Gert Krell writes: "Guten Rutsch!" "That's what we say in German when we wish someone a 'Happy New Year!' The term 'Rutsch' implies gliding or sliding, in this case into the new year, with the additional implication that people might literally ‘rutsch’ (i.e. slip) on the winter snow or ice. So better have a ‘Guten Rutsch’ than a bad one. "Etymologically, the whole 'Guten Rutsch' probably has ...

Holocaust Memorial at the Darmstadt Train Station The names of Jews who were deported from the train station are etched upon the shards of broken glass.

Writing requires thousands of decisions -- everything from whether to use a comma or a dash to what's in the next chapter. Voices in my head chatter incessantly and sometimes scream out: "Do this. Don't do that." "Speed it up" "Turn right here." "I mean, left." "Here!" Screeeeeeeeeeech. E. L Doctorow has said, "Writing a novel is like driving across country at night. You can only see as far as ...

The Erfelden Museum's exhibit of the old dry goods store The museum of local history in Erfelden, Germany boasts a strange exhibit -- the cabinetry and wall hangings from the dry goods store that once served the town. "The store belonged to the Jewish family named Stein," explained Katarina Kluck, a lifelong resident of the town who organized the display. "When the whole family fled in the late 1930s, the ...