What is the connection between the two stories told in our recent virtual salon, the documentary film Nobody Wants Us and Live Another Day, a book and web site? Both stories are about persecution, flight and statelessness, focusing especially on the experience of children. Our own mother's Holocaust narrative intersects the circumstances portrayed in the film, having received a visa out of danger as part of the rescue campaign by the heroic Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes, who is portrayed in the film.
Several of the authors who participated in our recent Holocaust Narratives virtual salon are holding their own online events! As a part of our mission to honor Holocaust narratives generally, not just our featured presentations, we recommend your attention to these two worthwhile events. The first event, a rumination on "Time, Memory, and the Present Moment" hosted by author Ellen Korman Mains, is live on Zoom this coming Sunday. The second, a lecture "Yiddishkayt, God and the Holocaust" by scholar Miriam Hoffman and performed by her son, actor Avi Hoffman, ran last evening on Facebook Live but is available to view at any time. 

A typhus epidemic was already rampant by the time we arrived. The disease was spread by lice that flourished in the mattresses and bedding in apartments throughout the ghetto. Then the lice would move to the hair and scalps of the ghetto residents. The common name for the disease was spotted fever, because it produced a characteristic skin rash on the trunk of the body which spread to the arms and legs, then finally to the face. Sufferers became increasingly disoriented and eventually demented. In the end stages, they would fall into a coma and die.

In observance of Yom HaShoah / Days of Remembrance 2020, the Ruby brothers will co-host an online salon and film screening by Zoom videoconference on Sunday, April 19. The event will highlight “Holocaust Narratives In a Time of Peril: Two Retrospectives.” To facilitate online dialogue, attendance is by invitation only and limited to 20 participants. Up to five invitations are available by request.

New postings on the historical blog "Munye's World" delve deeply into events in the "big forest" outside Skala in west Ukraine during the fall and winter of 1943-44, when scores of desperate Jews in hiding were hunted and killed and a few survived until the area was liberated in late March. The articles address discrepancies in two published accounts of the events and propose how the conflicts can be resolved. 

Two Righteous Gentiles • The Trial of Artur Engel • Jews in the Red Army
The Mermelstein and Edelstein versions of events conflict in several respects
In a 2012 interview with Walter Ruby, the late town historian set the context for Jewish life and ethnic politics in 1930s Skala
Walter Ruby announced the launch of LiveAnotherDayBook.com at an interfaith commemoration of the Holocaust and other genocides on Sunday, January 26, at the Arlington, Va. public library. The 15th Annual Reflections on Holocaust and Genocides carried on the long-time mission of its sponsor, the Center for Pluralism, to apply the lessons of history to prevent present-day genocides, massacres and ethnic cleansing.
A promotional web site for the forthcoming Holocaust memoir, Live Another Day: How I Survived the Holocaust and Achieved the American Dream, by Michael Edelstein, was unveiled today for public access at LiveAnotherDayBook.com. The site is a production of Ruby Brothers Media, a new venture by the book's co-authors Walter Ruby and Dan Ruby.
Subscribe to