They suffered the horrors of the Holocaust and the destruction of their families — and lived to tell the story.
Sam Harris, Mitchell Winthrop and Estelle Glaser Laughlin have gone through personal anguish to put their experiences to paper, each writing a haunting memoir.
How did they do it? How difficult was it? During interviews with the Tribune, they eloquently addressed these questions. Their edited responses are below.
Each author is a member of the Speakers’ Bureau of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, and they’ll talk about the process of writing their memoirs at the 33rd annual Printers Row Lit Fest at 3:30 p.m. Sunday at Jones College Prep, 700 S. State St., Room 4038.
For more information, visit www.printersrowlitfest.org.
Sam Harris, 82, born in Deblin, Poland
What happened: I was 4 years old when Hitler came to my town of Deblin, and during that time I witnessed all these terrible things, including losing my parents, my brothers, sisters. I was the youngest of seven, and I was loved by all. All of that disappeared.
More Top Picks Best Laptops For Graphic Design Students
Eventually they were all killed except two sisters. I went through two concentration camps: Deblin and Czestochowa. There were all kinds of miracles that happened along the way, so that I would survive. It’s unbelievable. I can’t even believe it happened to me, that I’m sitting here today.
Why I wrote a memoir: I wrote a memoir not because I wanted to. Over the years I would have dreams, and I wouldn’t talk about it. I would take a yellow piece of paper, I write the stories down and I give them titles. Like “Disney World,” which means the day of my liberation. “Hiding High in the Hay Loft,” which was when I was hiding in front of the Nazis when they were looking.
And I wrote so many of them, and I stored them away. My wife found them. And she said: “We have to write a book.”
I said, “No, wait till I’m dead.”
She said, “No, we’re going to do it now.”
How difficult was it to write?: The challenges were this: I would start to sweat. And I wrote, I put myself in the place where whatever I was writing about was happening to me. And all I was doing is like a newspaper person, standing there and reporting.
Excerpt from: “Sammy: Child Survivor of the Holocaust,’ by Samuel R. Harris (Szlamek Rzeznik) with Cheryl Gorder
“Suddenly from nowhere a soldier yelled, grabbed me by the arm and held his revolver right in front of my eyes. I was shaking frantically, filled with fear. Looking into his eyes, I saw the most cold, reptilian look I had ever seen in a human being.”
Mitchell Winthrop, 90, born in Lodz, Poland
What happened: I was incarcerated in the Lodz ghetto for five years until I was sent to Auschwitz, and I worked in a coal mine near Auschwitz.
Then I was sent on a death march, you can say, in snow, toward Germany. I escaped, but I was caught after two days and sent to another concentration camp called Mauthausen. There I was liberated by the American Army on May 5, 1945.
And I returned to Poland to try and find some of my family, but none was there.
Why I wrote a memoir: I started writing right after liberation. I started writing in Polish, because this is the language I knew best. I felt terribly lonely. And writing about my relatives, a memoir, relieved the loneliness.
There was another reason. I thought that if my book would be popular, maybe I would be able to find some relatives that way.
There was also another reason. All my relatives, these were successful people, businessmen, manufacturers, philanthropists, and they deserved to have their names memorialized in some way, and there was absolutely no trace of them having ever lived.
And, finally, there was one more reason. I was a witness to important events.
How difficult was it to write?: In a sense it was difficult, but in a sense it relieved the loneliness. Because it kind of brought my family back on the pages of my memoir.
So it was sweet and difficult both.
I started writing right away, in Polish, but when I emigrated to the United States, I thought that it would be more successful publishing it in English. So I started taking classes and learning English. It took me many years to master English to the point where I could be able to express myself enough for my readers to appreciate my memoir.
Excerpt from: “The Arrival: I Sought God in Hell,” by Mietek Weintraub (Mitchell Winthrop’s original name)
“In the anteroom, they inform us that we are in the shower barrack and must disrobe and leave all our belongings and clothes on the floor, right where we stand, keeping nothing but our belts and shoes. … I suddenly realize that my knapsack with the diary I kept in the ghetto, my treasured stamp collection, and my favorite family pictures may be lost forever. I must save the photos to preserve the memories just in case we’ll never see each other again.”
Estelle Glaser Laughlin, 87, born in Warsaw, Poland
What happened: I had just turned 10 when Germany invaded Poland, and immediately my sunny childhood turned into an inferno. They isolated us in a tiny ghetto. They built a thick wall around us, filled the ghetto with people driven out from surrounding areas.
Most people died in the streets of cold, starvation and illness. I experienced then the deportations, the infamous deportations of the Warsaw ghetto. It was carried out with 20th century know-how and Stone Age values.
We were loaded onto freight trains and ended up in Majdanek extermination camp, where my father was gassed. My mother, sister and I survived Majdanek and two other camps. We survived with love for humanity and compassion and joy — for life should be lived joyfully.
Why I wrote a memoir: These memories loom larger now at the winter of my age, the time of repose and reflection, and hence my memoir. After I retired, I joined a writers group. And the book just wrote itself.
The past is what formed me. Even though I lived in the present, in some way the past was with me in the back, as I believe the past is with us all our lives. We are still influenced by the smells, by the touch, by the emotions that formed us. And that stayed with me, and it just spoke for itself.
How difficult was it to write?: I was petrified to start writing it. I was so petrified to go back to that place that was so devastating. I was so afraid of seeing the people, of seeing the brutality, of seeing the death, of seeing the yearning for life.
I was very fearful, but it was a cathartic thing to do. I heard someone once say that that which you are afraid of most you should face, because the truth is never as horrible as the imagination. And that was true in my case.
In writing the book I met a very wise, very resilient girl who found a way to preserve the goodness, to keep her spirits alive. In a way, she brought her own light into her darkness. This is what sustained her, and this is what sustains the reader.
Excerpt from: “Transcending Darkness: A Girl’s Journey Out of the Holocaust,” by Estelle Glaser Laughlin
More Top Picks Best Punch Bags For Home Use
“I raised my eyes to the sky in hope of finding an inspiration, a way out. The sky hung there in the indescribable glory of a myriad stars, just blinking the fact that ‘the universe just is.'”
Howard Reich is a Tribune critic.
Twitter @howardreich
RELATED STORIES:
Bittersweet ending: A Nazi-looted painting resurfaces but is not returned
Must-see events at Printers Row Lit Fest
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Scott Turow, Amy Dickinson to appear at Printers Row Lit Fest
.galleries:after {
content: ”;
display: block;
background-color: #144A7C;
margin: 16px auto 0;
height: 5px;
width: 100px;
}
.galleries:before {
content: “Entertainment Photos and Video”;
display: block;
font: 700 20px Georgia,serif;
text-align: center;
color: #1e1e1e;
var playlist = ‘chi_ent_movie_trailers’,
layout = ‘autoblurb’,
iu = ‘%2F4011%2Ftrb.chicagotribune%2Fent’;
Watch the latest movie trailers.