Legacy

Students have changed my mother. At school speeches, they have listened to her story of fleeing Nazi Germany at 12 all by herself. They have asked her tough questions: What did you do? Why do you blame yourself? How could you think your parents didn't love you? They have born witness and have helped her to live more comfortably with her past.

Last Thursday, as part of the Woodstock Fine Arts Association Creative Living Series, award-winning author Fern Schumer Chapman captivated the audience with an inspiring presentation. Fern shared the emotional story of her mother, Edith Westerfeld, who painfully fled Nazi Germany in 1938 and journeyed to America as an unaccompanied minor refugee. Fern then described Edith’s return to her small German hometown in 2014 to witness the installation of a memorial ...

"This is a very good (and very important) book about a girl...who lost everything to war and had to start anew in America as a refugee in the 1940s, and her return to the land she once loved...I highly recommend this book for school libraries, public libraries, Holocaust Studies classrooms and resource rooms, and for personal collections. The issue of memory is a powerful one in Holocaust Studies and this ...

  THREE STARS IN THE NIGHT SKY is the sixth book on the second line.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015 8-10 a.m. A one-hour radio interview on WGTB Morning Show with Greg Berg. He interviews FSC about all three of her books. The show will be archived at this link: http://www.wgtd.org/Morning_Show.asp

  After decades of silence about her family history, Edith, at 90, tells her story at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center of coming to America alone as a 12-year-old girl. This year, she decided to become a docent at the Skokie, IL museum.

Here's a glimpse at my NEW narrative non-fiction book for upper elementary and middle school students, "LIKE FINDING MY TWIN: How Two Holocaust Refugees Were Reunited by Mrs. O'Boyle's 8th Graders." Copies will be available in June. I'll post some of the spreads in the coming weeks. You can reserve a copy now by emailing me at fernschumer@aim.com.

Good Reads Review of IS IT NIGHT OR DAY? Lynne rated it 5 of 5 stars Shelves: children, children-of-all-ages, historical-fiction, middle-grade, realistic-fiction, strong-girls, young-adult This is a very, very good book! It is historical fiction based on the life of the author's mother. It begins in a small town in Nazi Germany where we meet Edith just before her family sends her off to live in Chicago. She is going ...

My friend, Jürgen Flügge (Mina's son), just found an old suitcase full of postcards and letters from my mother, Edith, to her dear German friend, Mina. This is the first postcard 12-year-old Edith sent to 19-year-old Mina from the ship, the Deutschland, in March 1938! Here is what Edith wrote: My dear Mina, I don't have much time. They are calling me. Just wanted to send you heartfelt greetings and ...