Martha Hall Kelly's Blog: Martha's Blog, page 2

The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book club, Inspired by my Mother’s Stories of Growing Up on Martha’s Vineyard, is on the Way

I’m so excited to share my new novel, coming spring of 2025, The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which was inspired by my mother Joanne Finnegan Hall’s stories of growing up on the Vineyard during WWII.

The story in a nutshell: Mari Starwood arrives on Martha’s Vineyard from Los Angeles after her mother dies. Having found the address of famous painter Elizabeth Devereaux’s waterfront farm in her mother’s belongings, Mari has come to the Vineyard under the pretext of taking a painting class to learn the connection her mother had to the island. Mrs. Devereaux tells Mari the story of the two Smith girls who lived on the farm and how Mari is connected to them, changing Mari’s life forever. It’s inspired by my mother’s life growing up on Martha’s Vineyard in the 1940s and her family, the Smiths, who came to the Vineyard in the 1800s.

Thank goodness I’ve been collecting Martha’s Vineyard ephemera for years since these old postcards helped me bring the book’s settings alive. They’re not all from 1942 when the Smith girls’ story takes place, but close enough. They include the old Bayside Club  (which was called The Bay) in Vineyard Haven on the corner of Main Street and Owen Little Way (my mother’s best friend Betty Cottle, inspiration for Bess Stanhope in the book, used to waitress here). The club members played tennis and used a waterfront recreation center known as the Bayside Casino.

Much of the book takes place, past and present, in Vineyard Haven, one of the two port towns on the Island, where my parents lived. Love this old view of Main Street. It’s not that different today:

Wonderful view of Vineyard Haven harbor as it once was:

The MVY airport has changed a lot. Actually not that much, LOL. The planes though thank goodness.

Emily Post’s house in Edgartown. For some reason there are a million different postcards of her house. I know she was a popular celeb at the time, but still.

 

A fun scene in the book takes place at the Edgartown Yacht Club, below.

Bird’s eye view of fun Oak Bluffs where another one of my favorite book scenes takes place.

THE MARTHA’S VINEYARD BEACH AND BOOK CLUB IS ON THE WAY, INSPIRED BY MY MOTHER’S STORIES OF GROWING UP ON THE VINEYARD

I’m so excited to share my new novel, coming spring of 2025, The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which was inspired by my mother Joanne Finnegan Hall’s stories of growing up on the Vineyard during WWII.

The story in a nutshell: Mari Starwood arrives on Martha’s Vineyard from Los Angeles after her mother dies. Having found the address of famous painter Elizabeth Devereaux’s waterfront farm in her mother’s belongings, Mari has come to the Vineyard under the pretext of taking a painting class to learn the connection her mother had to the island. Mrs. Devereaux tells Mari the story of the two Smith girls who lived on the farm and how Mari is connected to them, changing Mari’s life forever. It’s inspired by my mother’s life growing up on Martha’s Vineyard in the 1940s and her family, the Smiths, who came to the Vineyard in the 1800s.

Thank goodness I’ve been collecting Martha’s Vineyard ephemera for years since these old postcards helped me bring the book’s settings alive. They are not all from 1942 when the Smith girls’ story takes place, but close enough. They include the old Bayside Club  (which was called The Bay) in Vineyard Haven on the corner of Main Street and Owen Little Way (my mother’s best friend Betty Cottle, inspiration for Bess Stanhope in the book, used to waitress here). The club members played tennis and used a waterfront recreation center known as the Bayside Casino.

Much of the book takes place, past and present, in Vineyard Haven, one of the two port towns on the Island, where my parents lived. Love this old view of Main Street. It’s not that different today:

Wonderful view of Vineyard Haven harbor as it once was:

The MVY airport has changed a lot. Actually not that much, LOL. The planes though thank goodness.

Emily Post’s house in Edgartown. For some reason there are a million different postcards of her house. I know she was a popular celeb at the time, but still.

 

A fun scene in the book takes place at the Edgartown Yacht Club, below.

Bird’s eye view of fun Oak Bluffs where another one of my favorite book scenes takes place.

Swedish designer Mats Gustafson’s sketches inspired Arlette’s fashion sketches In The Golden Doves

Once I discovered Mats Gustafson’s work I had to have my character Arlette sketch like him in The Golden Doves. Every one is a treasure and so modern.

 

From NYC to Disneyland: 64 Years Ago the Polish Ravensbruck Rabbits came to the U.S. for an incredible trip.

This year marks the 64th anniversary of the trip Caroline Ferriday helped arrange, bringing the Polish women known as the Ravensbruck Rabbits to America, a trip I uncovered back in 2000 when I started researching my novel Lilac Girls.

The  women arrived at Idlewild Airport (before it was re-named JFK in 1963) at the Pan Am offices (Pan American Airlines funded the airfare for the trip) for their rehabilitative trip to the U.S. Above, Norman Cousins is seated center, front row. Dr. William Hitzig center, rear.

The Polish women arrived in New York, assisted by Caroline Ferriday and Norman Cousins, editor of The Saturday Review. The women, who’d been the subjects of Nazi experimental operations while imprisoned at Ravensbruck Concentration Camp arrived and fanned out across the country, many to major cities near hospitals to receive rehabilitative care. The women stayed with families who’d donated lodging and met up in California at the end of their stay for a Greyhound Bus tour across the U.S.

This photo of the Polish ladies  known as the Ravensbruck Rabbits was taken in California during the trip, thirteen years after their liberation from Ravensbruck. From left rear: Władysława Marczewska, Janina Marczewska–Sterkowicz, Jadwiga Kukiela, Wacława Andrzejak-Gnatowska, Joanna Szydłowska, Maria Karczmarz Łysakowska. Middle row: StanisławaMłodkowska-Bielawska,MariaPietrzak-Skibińska, Stanisława Czajkowska-Bafia,JadwigaDzido-Hassa,WandaKulczykRosiewicz,MariaKuśmierczuk,PelagiaMaćkowska. First row from left to right: Maria Grabowska, Helena Hegier-Rafalska, Czesława Kostecka, Genowefa Kluczek-Kacka, Aka Chojnacka (who lived here in California), Władysława Karolewska-Łapińska, Jadwiga Gisges, Stefania Łotocka, Stefania Sieklucka, Leokadia Kwiecińska

 

The group tours Yosemite

Touring Knotts Berry Farm in California

The tour started in Palo-Alto, California and took the women through California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Tennessee. The first leg of the journey ran along the Pacific Ocean shore by the city of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. Then in Los Angeles the women visited Hollywood and Disneyland in Anaheim. In Arizona they saw the Hoover dam and Grand Canyon and in  New Mexico the Lapins visited an Indian reservation.

 

In Texas they saw Amarillo and Dallas and enjoyed a Neiman Marcus fashion show in their honor. After a stay in Memphis, Tennessee, on May 20, the route ended in Washington DC, where they were introduced at Congress. After that the women flew to New York and then home to Poland.

Cardinal Spellman grants the Ravensbruck Rabbits a private audience.

 

The Real Saffron, Our Favorite Kitty, Is Now Immortalized in The Golden Doves

When our daughter Katherine came to stay with us in Connecticut during COVID she brought her cat Saffron with her from Brooklyn. A former street cat, Saffron knew how to defend her turf and lets just say biting was a favorite activity. But after a while she got used to us and our dog Oliver after a while and became queen of the house.

She started venturing out of Katherine’s bedroom, coming into my office to hang out on my desk while I was writing. I fell in love with her and wrote her into The Golden Doves as Arlette’s cat at the cafe where she works.

And she liked to sleep on us sometimes.

One day we found out that Saffron had a heart problem and it wasn’t long before we all had to say a very sad goodbye to her. But when I’m mournful about it I remember that she lives on forever as Arlette’s cat at La Petite L’ouisau. Just the kind of place Saffron would have been the queen of.

Rest in peace, Saffron.

Operation Paperclip: How the USA Helped Nazi War criminals Escape Justice

Nazi scientists recruited by the USA pose at Fort Bliss, Texas, image via Twitter

Researching Operation Paperclip was one of the most interesting parts of writing my novel The Golden Doves.

Toward the end of WWII the United States  began recruiting top Nazi doctors, physicists and chemists, bringing them to work to the US to work on top secret programs like germ warfare and space projects. They marked the scientists they wanted, by putting a paperclip on their files, and Operation Paperclip was born. Through the secret program the US government brought at least sixteen hundred scientific and research specialists and their families, many with Nazi ties, to live in the US. The U.S. government worked hard to hide the pasts of the scientists they brought to America, many of whom were still ardent Nazis, and began a propaganda campaign to whitewash their pasts.

Author Annie Jacobsen tells the whole sordid story in the fascinating book, Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists To America.

Irene Zisblatt Survived Auschwitz to Tell Her Incredible Story

 

As a young girl in Hungary, Irene Weisberg Zisblatt was taken by the Nazis and became a prisoner in the dehumanizing Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. She witnessed and experienced unspeakable cruelty, lost her family to the gas chambers, and became one of Josef Mengele’s “guinea pigs”. Somehow she survived, through her hope and faith and the strength drawn from her unshakeable bond with her best friend, Sabka. The Fifth Diamond: The Story of Irene Weisberg Zisblatt is a testament to the triumph of the human spirit. It took Irene fifty years to break free of the terror of her experience and speak about it for the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, and in Stephen Spielberg’s Oscar-winning documentary, “The Last Days.” In this biography written with Gail Ann Webb, Irene continues her quest to educate us all, in order to rid the world of prejudice, intolerance, and indifference.

https://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Diamond-Irene-Weisberg-Zisblatt/dp/B00142DIJS

 

The Female Wing of the Hitler Youth Was the Nazi’s Secret Weapon

I dug in deep to the “Band of German Maidens ” (Bund Deutscher Madel / BDM), the female wing of the Nazi Party Hitler Youth organization, when writing The Golden Doves, since my French character Arlette grows up in Alsace, on the border of Germany and France, and is heavily influenced by the German culture there.

In Nazi propaganda, the BDM was presented as a meek group of women and girls helping the all male Nazi Youth, but it was more involved in the war effort than many people realize.

After the outbreak of  WWII, the BDM helped the war effort in many expected ways. Younger girls collected donations of money and clothing, volunteered at hospitals and helped wounded German soldiers at train stations. But after 1943, as Allied air attacks on German cities increased and Germany experienced increasing numbers of male casualties, the women of the BDM stepped up for the Reich and became valuable to Hitler militarily. Many BDM girls went into the  military and paramilitary services known as Wehrmachtshelferin, where they served as anti-aircraft warfare helpers (some actually operated the anti-aircraft guns) and searchlight operators.

Wearing their signature uniform of the brown jackets, with a Swastika and rank badge sewn on the sleeve, dark skirt, white blouse and uniform kerchief, many older BDM members were sent to Poland as part of the Germanization efforts and were the first to oversee the eviction of Poles from their homes.  In the last days of the war, some BDM girls even joined with the Volkssturm (the last-ditch defense) in Berlin and other cities in fighting the invading Allied armies, and many were recruited into the short-lived Nazi Werwolf resistance groups which were intended to wage guerrilla war in Allied-occupied areas. As the Germans suffered record heavy losses toward the end of the war and male Hitler Youth were pressed into service, Himmler reportedly even considered sending the BDM women finto battle alongside them.

But the war ended before that plan could be realized and the BDM was disbanded on October 10, 1945 by the Allied Control Council and the girls and women of the BDM simply rejoined German society.

The Amazing Dress That Inspired Arlette’s Wedding Dress in The Golden Doves was a British Princess’ Favorite.

Since my French character Arlette LaRue in The Golden Doves is a budding fashion designer and is inspired by Christian Dior, I had to find the perfect wedding dress for her and was inspired by a  cream Dior dress Princess Margaret wore for her 21st birthday in 1951.

After WWII, the palace forbade Elizabeth and Margaret from wearing Dior’s extravagant New Look, since rationing was still prominent in some areas. But clearly, by 1951 Margaret felt it was time for a change.

The princess was photographed in the dress by Cecil Beaton and the portrait became one of the most memorable royal photographs of the twentieth century.

For my book, I combined this famous dress with the one below to make Arlette’s wedding dress, for a reason which I can’t reveal for spoiler reasons. 🙂

This Nazi Doctor Evaded Justice Until a Ravensbruck Rabbit Blew the Whistle on Him.

In 1951 Dr. Walter P. Schreiber, former WWII Chief of Medical Science in the Nazi Supreme Command, arrived in the US. Captured by Russian troops in 1945 and held prisoner in various POW camps, Schreiber had not stood trial with his fellow doctors in Nuremberg and US Army intelligence brought him and his family to the US to work as part of Operation Paperclip at the U.S. Air Force School of Aviation Medicine, Randolph Field, Texas.

When a group of doctors at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, led by Dr. Leo Alexander, a longtime friend of socialite Caroline Ferriday, discovered that Schreiber was in this country working for the US government, he gathered a cadre of fellow doctors to ring the alarm.

Dr. Alexander

Dr. Alexander points out evidence of Polish “rabbits’ terrible leg injuries, a result of Nazi experiments

Alexander, who had helped prosecute Nazi doctors at Nuremberg, knew that Schreiber had worked as Chief of the Sanitary Division of the Military Medical Academy, which oversaw the experiments conducted at all the Nazi camps. When the US government objected to Alexander’s claims, saying Schreiber had been carefully vetted and was in no way guilty of war crimes, and claimed they needed his expertise for their top secret projects, Leo Alexander contacted The Boston Globe. The story became public and though Alexander presented evidence from the trials, which mentioned Schreiber by name, the Nazi doctor swore he had nothing to do with Ravensbruck or the experiments. Public opinion was split. Some accused Alexander and the other Jewish doctors of conducting a witch hunt against Schreiber.

Enter Nina Iwanska.

Nina was in the US in 1952 as a guest of philanthropist Caroline Ferriday for three months of treatment at Beth Israel Hospital to repair damage Nazi doctors and done in performing experiments on her and seventy one other women at Ravensbruck Concentration Camp for women. She was visiting Boston from Paris where she lived and worked as a Radio Free Europe reporter. The FBI interviewed Nina about Dr. Schreiber–did she remember anything about him from her time at Ravensbruck? She remembered quite a lot and explained that Schreiber had been prominent at Ravensbruck and oversaw many of the experimental operations performed on her and many other healthy women there and that Dr. Gebhardt, who was executed for his part in the experiments, reported to Schreiber. She had even seen Schreiber at a conference held at the camp to discuss the experiments performed on the young women.

Soon the Pentagon was flooded with bad publicity over Schreiber and promised to drop him from the Air Force payroll and deport him. They did neither, until months later Schneider asked to go to Argentina to live with his daughter. Presenting Schreiber as “an innocent victim of adverse publicity instigated by Jews,” Operation Paperclip staff secured him a good job with the Argentine government. Schreiber joined thousands of his fellow Nazis including Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele enjoying their post war crime lives and spent the rest of his days living with his daughter in a home named “Without a Care”.