I was fifteen years old when I learned that I came from a family of Holocaust survivors. Schlomo (Sol) and Nechuma with their children (from left), Addy (my grandfather), Jakob, Halina, Mila, and Genek The discovery sparked a dizzying array of questions, the most unsettling of which was: Why was I just learning…
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Both Sol, known for his generosity and easygoing nature, and Nechuma, the “mighty matriarch” as she’s affectionately called, are well liked and respected among Poles and Jews alike in the Radom community. They take great pride in the success of their fabric shop, as well as in their children’s upbringing, education, and careers.
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Halina is the youngest and most rebellious of the five Kurc siblings. Whether in the right or blatantly in the wrong, she stands her ground with the brazen defiance of a pitbull guarding a bone. Thanks to her bravado, her blond hair, and her sea-green eyes, Halina, twenty-two at the start of the war, abides…
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The youngest and most soft-spoken of the three Kurc brothers, Jakob is a hopeless romantic. Playful, humble, and forever resistant to being the center of attention, there’s hardly anywhere he’d rather be than beside his high school sweetheart, Bella, or peering down through the viewfinder of his Rolleiflex camera.
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Genek is the oldest and the most debonair of the Kurc siblings. With a law degree, a dimpled smile, and a sexy, signature swagger, Genek, a lawyer by trade, can talk his way into or out of just about anything. His wife Herta jokes that he talked her into marriage the day they met at…
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Addy’s older sister Mila is greatly admired by each of her siblings. With a degree in classical music and a passion for literature and travel, Mila’s approach to life is at once thoughtful and diligent. As a new mother at the start of the war, Mila must learn to keep a brave face, no matter…
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Whether composing a hit song in Poland or bent over the keys of a Steinway aboard a ship full of refugees, Addy is an entertainer through and through. A charmer and a joker with a soft spot for beautiful women and American jazz, his musical prowess and quirky, larger-than-life personality earn him the affection of…
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Two weeks ago, I had the honor of being invited by Penguin Random House (PRH) to join a panel of six authors with forthcoming titles at an Open Book event in New York. Our assignment, we were told prior to the event, was to speak for ten minutes each about our books to a group of 100 librarians from…
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I left you last month with a post about my editor---and I promise to update you on Jane's encouraging feedback at a later date. This post, however, I'd like to dedicate to my grandmother, Caroline, who passed away on Tuesday, two days short of her 100th birthday. Left: Young Caroline with her parents and brothers…
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It was January 17th, 2008 when I finally picked my mother’s black binder up off the shelf. A new year, full of resolutions, including one big one—to unearth and record my family history. I sat cross-legged on my couch in Seattle, the binder resting on my lap, took a long, slow breath, and flipped it…
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I remember the day I told my mother I wanted to write a book about our family history. We were sitting on her gray and white-striped couch in Providence, Rhode Island, the day after Christmas, 2005. “I’ve decided I’d like to write a book about how Papa and his siblings survived the Holocaust," I said.…
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(Continued from Thirty-Two Relatives Under One Roof: a Raucous-Turned-Revelational Family Reunion) It turns out my grandfather (who later changed his name, for obvious reasons, from Adolph/Addy to Eddy), was just one of over twenty Kurcs originally from Radom, Poland. He was living in Toulouse in ‘39 at the start of the war. When he learned it would…
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In July of 2000, the summer after I graduated from the University of Virginia, my mother organized a Kurc family reunion at our house on Martha’s Vineyard. She invited thirty-two relatives (many of whom she hadn’t seen in over twenty years), and to her surprise, all thirty-two RSVPed, “Of course we’ll be there!” We rented…
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