Category Archives: Holocaust

Treasure in the Compost Bin

When I went out to dump some kitchen scraps into the compost bin a few weeks ago I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. There were several tall leafy plants topped with delicate purple flowers. I had no idea what they were and so proceeded to look them up on the internet. I found aContinue reading “Treasure in the Compost Bin”

Crossroads Academy Book Review

My readers were 6th, 7th and 8th graders at Crossroads Academy. There were boys and girls, Jews and non-Jews. I gave each student a copy the current draft of my book Tutti & Popje and a red pen. Unfortunately, time did not allow for them to read the entire thing.  Most of them got about 20 pages in. Continue reading “Crossroads Academy Book Review”

Total Verrückt! Encore

Friday night my husband and I went to Boston to see Joanna Caplan’s premier performance of Total Verrückt! at the Charlestown Working Theater. This is a one-woman show that was conceived, created and performed by Joanna. It portrays the “totally crazy” circumstances of the German-Jewish former stars of the Weimar Republic that found themselves inContinue reading “Total Verrückt! Encore”

Class Photos – 1942, 1968, 2003

About the 4th week of every school year there is a ritual. It goes on in schools all over the world and has been happening for decades. Parents pick out nice clothes for their children to wear, and the kids gather for a class photo. They usually line up in rows with their teacher standingContinue reading “Class Photos – 1942, 1968, 2003”

Oberländer Overseas

Yesterday was quite exciting for me. I decided to look into the fate of the 7 Jews (of which my grandfather was one) who were named in the documents that Eichmann‘s office and Speer‘s office were discussing. This is what I came up with: Broder was sent to Westerbork in February 1944 and then Theresienstadt laterContinue reading “Oberländer Overseas”

A picture tells a thousand words (especially when I don’t have time to write)

Just a quick post today. Here are a couple of pictures of our meeting last week. You can see how excited we all were to share the pictures and documents we had from the 1940’s. Top: Arnoud-Jan showing me some documents he found in the Red Cross archives. Bottom: I’m showing the pictures  I pulledContinue reading “A picture tells a thousand words (especially when I don’t have time to write)”

Washington DC Research Not For Naught

Coming home from DC on Thursday, I was doing quite a bit of rationalizing. My rationalizations consisted of ideas such as: 1 – Now I know where not to look. 2 – The answers must not be there, and now I know that. 3 – I didn’t find what I was looking for, but IContinue reading “Washington DC Research Not For Naught”