Holocaust Trauma

In my new novel, In Pieces, I explore the subject of Holocaust trauma. When the Holocaust was over, six million families lost loved ones and they had to pick up the pieces. Some chose not to speak of the families, some had no idea how their loved ones died and some wanted to keep their loved ones memories and stories alive as much as they could. In this story, Leyna Ginz (nee Wolfova) lost her sister, Felicitas (Lici) (Leet-zee) in April of 1945. Did I base this off of a real person? Yes, a lot of the story is based on the stories of Otto Wolf and Petr Ginz, and their sisters, Chava (1930–2022) and Felicitas (Lici) (1920–2006) and the way they chose to speak of their brothers, Felicitas, had a very difficult time talking about either of her brothers (Kurt and Otto ) and Chava chose to speak of Petr. This story is also based on the Serger (Sorger) Sisters, Esther and Rozia Donia.

In this story, Lici is a difficult subject to talk about . The loss of Lici was still painful for her sister, Leyna. In the story, Leyna’s granddaughter, Lici, who was named after her great aunt she never met, is given a school assignment to talk about her family tree and she knows that her grandmother is a Holocaust survivor and that her sister died somehow, but I am writing two versions of this story.

Version 1 (Which I am done with) :

In the beginning of the story, we have the mystery of Lici, the great aunt who no one will talk about. But as the story goes on, her grandmother, Leyna, her great aunt’s youngest sister, decides that she must tell about her sister, and along the way, both of them find out more details about her sister’s life. With the loss of her sister, Leyna tries to not speak about it.

Version 2 ( which I am now just starting):

When Lici is given a school assignment, she wants to write about her great-aunt Lici, whom she is named after. There’s only one problem, Great-Aunt Lici died in the Holocaust. Her sister, Leyna (namesake Lici’s grandmother) refuses to speak about her. In her home, there is a room and when Lici enters it, she ends meeting her great-aunt at the time before and during the Holocaust and see’s why her grandmother won’t speak about her: She wittnessed how Lici died.

With the waging anti-semitism going on right now, I feel that we need to tell important stories, and sometimes the pain of loosing a family memeber, particularly when they died in the way that many of them did, the pain of losing them is still great .