Author: Dr. Judy Stone

Publisher: Mountainside MD PRESS

ISBN: 978-0-9749178-2-5

There have been dozens of books authored by second-generation children of Holocaust survivors that have been trying to make sense of their backgrounds by delving into the horrendous past experiences of their parents. This has proven to be no easy feat as their parents, uncles and other relatives often erect a wall of silence about their experiences and just want to forget about it.

Very often these survivors grumble to their children, it is better that you not know about it or you have no right to ask me about it. They even go so far as castigating their children and mention to them that it is nonsense that they should have a part of their history, since their lives were separate.

Perhaps, this is a way for these parents to cope with the past? Unfortunately, within a few years we will no longer be able to have personal access to these remaining survivors as there are less than 360,00 that remain alive today and about one thousand die each month.

Dr. Judy Stone, author of Resilience: One Family's Story of Hope and Triumph Over Evil  confesses that until later in life she knew very little about her ancestors' horrendous experiences while they lived in Hungary before, during and after the Holocaust. As a result of her experiencing a few crucial events, July was impelled to dig deeper into her mother's and father's past.

The first turning point occurred when her mother, Magnus sat for an interview for the Steven Spielberg's Shoa Foundation in 1996. Another was when her daughter, Heather was preparing for her bat mitzvah and chose to interview Judy's second cousin, Andor (Ancsi) as a oral history project. Andor was her father's first cousin and the sole survivor of his branch of the Glattstein family. When she heard the graphic nature of his story and his directness, she was determined to uncover from her aunts and uncles their experiences during the Holocaust. Upon visiting them in various cities in the USA, she would often ask them if they would permit her to tape their stories. Over several years, Judy recorded many informal chats where she began to piece together the devastating lives they were forced to live during World War II.

In 2007, when Judy's mother was hospitalized, she was asked by her mother to start writing about her own personal war-time experiences. The culmination of all of these conversations, interviews and considerable research is Judy's Resilience: One Family's Story of Hope and Triumph Over Evil. It should be pointed out to readers before you open the memoir is that the descriptions of boundless cruelty is portrayed by extremely vivid accounts.

After her mother's passing, Judy seriously began to put together her family's stories. She twice visited Hungary and spoke with relatives in Sáránd, a village in Eastern Hungary, where her mother lived, to get a better understanding of what life was before, during, and after the war. Her father's family, the Glattstein's, lived in the city of Debrecen, with all of its urban amenities such as electricity, a trolley, and cultural events, as well as a large Jewish community. In contrast, her mother's family, the Ehrenfelds were isolated socially and did without the amenities her father had enjoyed.

Using assorted software, Judy compiled a data base for each of her parents and each of their siblings, with subsections for childhood, the prelude to the war, the war years, liberation, and coming to America. Much of the material contained in the data base forms the bulk of the memoir. Judy does provide her readers with the Glattstein and Ehrenfeld Family trees, which I found most helpful as there were times I was confused as to which relative came from which branch.

Reading at times like a film script, the memoir includes some gripping narratives that poignantly illustrate true bravery, hope and resilience, and yet, after reading the book, you have to ask yourself, could Judy's family truly recover from their horrendous experiences?

An added feature of the book are some of the historical tidbits that were unknown to me. For example, after the Germans had invaded Hungary in 1944, all young men had to register with the authorities, and they were taken to labor camps. It has been estimated that only 10-to 20 percent of these young men survived the war. I also was not fully aware of what was life like for Holocaust survivors after the liberation. Judy recounts from her interviews with her relatives that most concentration camp survivors made out just a little better than Germans did right after the war, but for the most part very few of them were able to re-settle where they had been. In fact, they literally had nothing to go home to as their communities had been utterly destroyed.

Judy states that she remains frustrated and disappointed that she could not do a perfect job recording the history of her family, but she reminds herself that impediments prevent perfection, and thus her earlier resistance to learn about the Holocaust-fear, trauma, shyness, a desire not to know, kept her from asking more detailed questions that she now wishes she had done while interviewing the members of her maternal and paternal side of her family. Nonetheless, we have to thank Judy and others who have been instilled with a belief that these stories must be told and kept alive. You just have to look to Europe, the USA, and other corners of the world where anti-Semitism, racism and hatred is alive and thriving. To quote Elie Wiesel: To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”

Judy has decided to donate the profits from the sale of the book to organizations that promote Holocaust education.

Follow Here To Read Norm's Interesting Interview With Dr. Judy Stone