Otto- How Am I Going to Complete This Novel? or Write the Screenplay?
I have been working on this Otto Wolf novel for a while now. It was only last year when I found out details of what Felicitas (his sister) did after the war, but when I’m researching more information, I am always at a dead end . It’s pretty awful, but I guess that’s what being a writer means, I have to embellish a few details, or blatantly make things up. Of course, I have already put an author’s note that Otto and his family were real people. I have tried to write a screenplay that goes along with the book, but I have already had a cast in mind.
Otto was real and I want everyone to know who he was. I’ve had people ask me, “What’s so special about him?” I think it’s because he is like Anne Frank, he too had an ending. He didn’t see the end of the war, and like Anne Frank, had family who saved their words and did something with their words. I don’t think Otto’s full diaries have ever been published in English before, with the exception of the excerpts in Salvaged Pages by friend and historian Alexandra Zapruder. A marvelous book and that is how I got introduced to who Otto was.
In my book, it is told from Felicitas’s perspective. But the story begins with an intern at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, as she goes through the diaries, she calls Felicitas, who is then still alive and Felicitas Tells her Story.
Felicitas tells her story from when the war began to the family going into hiding. Then, she talks about what she did after the war, which there are lot of details missing. I’m trying to find out more, but I am at a standstill.
So, I guess being a writer, I will have to come up with details myself.
As for the screenplay, I have written several parts and scenes and have already thought of Darci Shaw to play Felicitas from the war to the end of the war and Michelle Dockery as older Felicitas. Tom Holland, who kinda looks like Otto would play Otto and Nick Jonas, would play Slavek.
I haven’t written all of it yet, but I hope to get it out soon. Otto will be a story that I have to give tribute to Otto Wolf who died in the Holocaust.
Otto wrote beautifully, and it’s amazing to see his diary has survived all this time, thanks to Felicitas who kept it in such good conditions. She donated all four volumes of her brother’s diaries. He wrote more than a thousand entries and I wish I could have those entries translated and published fully. As you can see, he wrote in Czech and in cursive, which I cannot read Czech and I can barely read cursive. Felicitas wrote the last few entries in his diary in pencil, so it’s fading sadly but you can barely read what she wrote.
This is what Felicitas wrote, her handwriting resembles Otto’s in so many ways. She wrote in Pencil, other than Otto’s pen. I’m sure she had to leave a pen behind, while hiding in the forests and sheds. She was scared to death for Otto, and Otto was on the other side getting hurt and tortured for just existing. Otto’s memory for Felicitas remained painful, as she was a positive person and wanted people to be the same.
I don’t know what Felicitas’s parenting was like, but I assume she was a good mother and grandmother.
No obituary for her at all, not that I can find. She’s buried in Wisconsin of all places, Otto didn’t have an obit, obviously, none of the men he was killed with did. Anne Frank, Moshe Flinker and Otto, all ended before they reached adulthood. They were just teens. Otto Wolf, Moshe, and Anne all died in 1945, just a few months apart from each other. All of them have diaries that people can now read. Moshe’s diary was published in 1971, and Anne’s diary was published in Dutch first in 1947 and then in 1952 in English. Otto’s diary has not been published fully, and I wish it were, so we can read his entire diary.
Otto’s diary will always be something that I’ll talk about and Felicitas I’ll be able to do more research and find out what I know. I hope that her family does reach out and answer my questions and if they don’t- they don’t, I’ll just have my questions unanswered.
I’ve only seen two photos of Felicitas and I guess that’s all I’ll ever see.. at least I’m able to see two, that’s good right?
Otto should be done soon, before I give it to a publisher.
