Such Good Girls (33 page)

Authors: R. D. Rosen

BOOK: Such Good Girls

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In addition, Susan Squire could not have been more generous with her time, or intelligence, in improving this book. Merci. Many thanks to Teresa Pollin of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for her explanations, translations, and scrutiny of my manuscript. I’d also like to thank Myriam Abramowicz, Abba Lessing, Dr. Vera Muller-Paisner, Henry Rozycki, Susan Sanders, Judith Sherman, Dr. Paul Valent, and Daniel and Jeffrey Zaretsky for sharing their stories and insights with me. Alice Herb, thank you for your help, for your interview with your cousin Sophie back in the 1970s, and for finding a place for me at your seder in 2010; and thanks to Gary Hoenig and Betsy Carter for sharing that seder, and so much else.

“Grateful” doesn’t begin to describe my feelings about the late Laura Turner, formerly Schwarzwald, née Litwak, without whose unbelievable bravery and resourcefulness in surviving the Second World War this book would not have been possible. Her seventeen-page memoir, which she delivered at college in New York City in the 1970s, helped immeasurably in anchoring the book in reality.

I am indebted to Flora Hogman for her beautifully written essay about her memories of the convent that hid her and her visit there in 1988 (in addition to several other papers of hers); to Carla Lessing for her essay on sexual abuse of hidden child survivors; to Ed Lessing for his essay on the First International Gathering in 1991; and Sarah Rozycki’s interview with her grandmother, Putzi Rozycki. Numerous personal accounts in The Hidden Child, the Hidden Child Foundation’s newsletter, edited by Rachelle Goldstein, as well as interviews conducted by Jane Marks for her book The Hidden Children, were very valuable.

Among my friends, no one helped me more with this book than Charles Dawe, who’s known me since kindergarten and has been a most thoughtful and generous sounding board and informal editor for many years. My sister Joyce Friedman, who’s known me exactly as long, was an extremely helpful early responder and supporter, as were old, dear friends David Bloom and Stephen Molton. To Sydney Pierce at HarperCollins, thank you for all your excellent curatorial help.

As always, I’m grateful to my late parents, Carolyn and Sol Rosen, for supporting my destiny and for setting so many examples of how to live, the wisdom of which impress me more and more each day.

I wish they were here to read the book that, in so many ways, they inspired.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

R. D. ROSEN has written numerous books, ranging from narrative nonfiction, including A Buffalo in the House: The Extraordinary Story of Charlie and His Family and Psychobabble: Fast Talk and Quick Cure in the Era of Feeling to mystery novels, including Edgar Award–winning Strike Three You’re Dead. He has worked as a book editor, television producer, and humorist and satirist on PBS, HBO, and NPR’s All Things Considered. For more, visit rdrosen.com.

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ALSO BY R. D. ROSEN

Nonfiction

Me and My Friends, We No Longer Profess Any Graces:

A Premature Memoir

Psychobabble: Fast Talk and Quick Cure in the Era of Feeling

A Buffalo in the House:

The Extraordinary Story of Charlie and His Family

Fiction

Strike Three You’re Dead

Fadeaway

Saturday Night Dead

World of Hurt

Dead Ball

COPYRIGHT

SUCH GOOD GIRLS. Copyright © 2014 by Richard D. Rosen. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rosen, Richard Dean.

Such good girls : the journey of the Holocaust’s hidden child survivors / R. D. Rosen.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-06-229710-5

1. Schwarzwald, Selma, 1937– 2. Hillel, Flora, 1936– 3. Heijmans, Carla, 1931– 4. Jewish children in the Holocaust—Biography. 5. Holocaust survivors—New York—Biography. I. Title.

D804.48.R67 2014

940.53′18083—dc23

2014014200

EPUB Edition September 2014 ISBN 9780062297129

14 15 16 17 18 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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