Ann S. Epstein writes novels, short stories, memoir, essays, and poems. Please use the links or site menu to go to the HOME PAGE; learn about her NOVELS, SHORT STORIES, MEMOIR, ESSAYS, and POEMS; find interesting facts in BEHIND THE STORY; read REFLECTIONS on writing; check NEWS for updates on publications and related events; see REVIEWS; learn about her END-OF-LIFE DOULA credentials and services; and CONTACT US to send webmail.
Stories from those who survived the Nazi Holocaust
“As we left the ghetto, our grandmother carried her tachrichim (burial shroud), made of lace and ruffles. We, her granddaughters, had helped her sew it. She never got to wear it.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
“Smuggled out of the ghetto, we weren’t afraid of Germans, who couldn’t recognize a Jew. They thought we looked the way Nazi propaganda portrayed us: crooked noses, side locks, black coats. We were more afraid of our Polish neighbors turning us in.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
“My mother and 5,000 others worked 12-hour shifts, night or day, seven days a week, making bullet casings. They were fed 600 calories a day. A Polish worker who went home at night sometimes smuggled in flour which my mother, risking her life, used to bake bread on the hot machinery. That extra bread was the difference between life and death.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
“We had little to eat. Since I was blonde with a light complexion, I could pass as a non-Jewish Pole and smuggle food to my family in the ghetto. The police often stopped me and confiscated the food I was carrying. Once, a guard tried to force me to admit I was Jewish and ordered a German Shepherd to attack me. Even when the dog bit off pieces of my flesh, I insisted I wasn’t Jewish. I still bear the scars.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
“Within two days of the 1941 invasion of Poland, Germans were in my hometown, using the synagogue as a stable, destroying Jewish symbols, and demanding that Jews be identified by a Star of David. We were moved by peasant cart to the Mlawa ghetto, finding the place empty because previous inhabitants had all been transferred to Auschwitz.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
My novel One Person’s Loss (coming September 2022) is about German Jewish newlyweds sent to Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter, admonished by their parents to have children to “save our people.” A new a set of posts, “Survivor Stories,” will share the tales of real people who lived through the Holocaust and their memories of the millions who didn’t. The images are informative without being voyeuristic or degrading. Learn more at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Read about the book in NOVELS.
After 50 “Bad Dad Tales” (all archived here), I am retiring the series that introduced readers to The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. I will soon launch a new series, “Survivor Stories,” in honor of my upcoming book, One Person’s Loss, which will be released in September 2022, a World War II era narrative about Holocaust survivors torn between relief and guilt. Read about both publications and my other books, all available in print and electronic formats, in NOVELS.
