The below biographies are stolen from the LA Times Festival guide:
Joe Bialowitz: Bialowitz is one of the youngest members of the "second generation" of European Holocaust survivors. He lectures internationally on ways to more effectively remember and teach about the Holocaust. Bialowitz's first book (coauthored with his father), "A Promise at Sobibor" has been published in English and Polish.
Lillian Faderman. Faderman's books include a memoir, "Naked in the Promised Land," and the recently reissued "Scotch Verdict." Her books have been translated into nine languages. She is the recipient of several lifetime achievement awards, including the Monette/Horwitz Award, the Publishers' Triangle Award and Yale University's James Brudner Award. "My Mother's Wars" is her latest book.
Marione Ingram. Ingram was born in Hamburg in 1935 and today lives in Hamburg and Washington, D.C. Her book, "The Hands of War," a memoir about the Second World War and about her later work as a civil rights activist in Mississippi, was published in 2013. Her art has been exhibited at galleries in Europe and America.
Jonathan Kirsch. Kirsch is an attorney and the author of 12 books, including the bestseller "A History of the End of the World." He contributed book reviews to the Los Angeles Times for more than 30 years and is now the book editor of the Jewish Journal. His most recent title is "The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan: A Boy Avenger, a Nazi Diplomat and a Murder in Paris."
The below are my notes -- flawed as they might be:
Jonathan Kirsch: His book is about a 17 year old assassin named Herschel Grynszpan. Jews have searched for acts of resistance during the Holocaust. Warsaw Ghetto fighters felt there was a moral obligation to fight back. Why is Grynszpan been ignored? There is abundance of evidence. He was investigated by the French -- for a assassination of a German diplomat in Paris. The Germans had him at the top of their list to arrest.
Grynszpan was Polish. His parents along with other Jews were arrested in Germany and sent to Poland. Poland didn't want them either. They were left in the middle of no where. He escaped to Paris. There, he assassinated the German diplomat. Hitler wanted a show trial. This was supposed to be the excuse for why Jews needed to be murdered. He came up with a sexual scandal and so the Germans didn't put him on trial. He disappears from history at that point in time. He was a visionary to see what Hitler would do.
Lillian Faderman: Is Latvian. Her book is about her mother who happened to be 43 and unmarried when she gave birth to Lillian. She decided to study her mother to understand what Jews in America might have known was happening in Europe. Her mother was sent to America from Latvia at the age of 17. The goal was to get married, save money and bring the rest of the family to America. She knew no English. Did the fact that her mother did not marry until well later in life cause any guilt?
Antisemitism attitudes were not restricted to just Germany and Austria. There were political parties of some power in Romania and Poland that were also antisemitism But Latvia was considered fine; however, her brother knew better.
Many wanted to come to America in the 1930s, but there was a quota in place. It was based on the representation of immigrants from a certain country based on their 1890s population -- 2% of that population level was allowed into America. The anti-immigration wave was caused by the Great Depression. Since there were not that many Latvians in America in the 1890s, it was nearly impossible to bring the family over. And the emphasis to save Jews were focused on German/Austrian Jews as they seemed to be the most in danger.
Marione Ingram: Hamburg bombing was in 1943. Family was a privileged mixed race family. By 1941, most of the rest of her family was dead. The family was sent to Minsk. Grandmother left Marione pearl earrings as she was getting sent onto a train. Her family got the departure order in 1943, 2 days before the bombing started. Her mother sent the 2 daughters to relatives, but Marione returned home instead to find her mother with her head in the gas oven.
Father was beaten by Nazis for not divorcing her mother. The father was part of the underground.
Firebombing saved their lives, but destroyed her neighborhood. They fled through the streets of Hamburg for 10 days and 10 nights. She saw folks jumping into the water in flames and then pop out of the water for breath and start burning again -- due to the chemical used. She suffered horrific nightmares and wrote the book to deal with these nightmares.
The family went into hiding outside of Hamburg at a house run by another underground fighter. This lasted for 1.5 years.
She came to NY at 17. It was the first time she felt free as a Jew. She became a Civil Rights/Feminist Activist.
Joe Bialowitz: Father was part of a revolt and is still alive and believes he needs to bare witness. The book tries to walk in the shoes of his father. Why were there not more revolts: should you resist if it means the whole family will be put at risk? But by 1943, Jews knew they had to resist. Death by bullet was better than death by gas. At a camp his father fought Nazis, escaped through barbwire and landmines and hid with a Polish family.
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