Fern Schumer Chapman's Blog, page 38

Coming in March: Is It Night or Day? paperback edition

Square Fish will release the paperback edition of IS IT NIGHT OR DAY? on March 18, 2014. The book includes bonus material — a Q/A with the author, a 3,000-word story of how 8th graders reunited the two Holocaust refugees featured in the book, and the Teachers Guide, which is aligned with the new Core Curriculum Standards. Fern Schumer Chapman is scheduling school speeches tied to the paperback release at this time.

Stockstadt mayor makes the case for Stumbling Stones

 

 

 

Here is part of what the mayor, who expected a fight, told the Community Council this week:

 

 

 

Stockstadt am Rhine had a relatively small Jewish community,  composed mainly of Westerfeld, Kahn, and Gutjahr families. The survivors and descendants of the Westerfelds have explicitly expressed interest and agreed to the stumbling blocks. The story of this family is well known, in part because of the granddaughter, Fern Schumer Chapman’s, literary work.

 

In her book ” Motherland … Beyond the Holocaust, she “tells the story of her and her mother’s a trip to Germany: In October, 1990, Edith Westerfeld Schumer returned to the place where she was born – she visited the city on the Rhine. In 1938, her parents sent Edith Westerfeld, who was only 12, to live with relatives in America. Her parents were murdered by the Nazis.The places where we want to install the stumbling blocks make it clear that this barbarity also occurred in the middle of our community. Even here in our town on the Rhine, man fell victim to Nazi madness. We should therefore lay stumbling blocks here.

Sorrow and joy are closely tied together in such an installation. Sadness, because it is abhorrent to torture people because of their Jewish origin and kill them. And joy, because here at this point, it is a long time ago, and we want to pay our respect to the victims.

Stumbling blocks are remembrance and reminder of that time. Stumbling blocks are important for the whole family and our community. It is important that in the family and in the community this should not be forgotten, that one remembers each family member ‘s specific features.

 

A good working memory is a prerequisite for the mastery of the present.

The memory of the victims is also a public responsibility. The almost – forgotten private suffering of our missing neighbors can now be preserved in public, the silence will be broken about the past, the future can be designed jointly.
 

 

Our neighbors are gone forever through the pitfalls and the lack of public discussion.Your family name will be called again. In keeping with the Jewish tradition:

“A person is only forgotten if his name is forgotten.”

 

 

 

Stockstadt decides to lay stumbling stones to memorilize my grandparents

Here is part of the article that ran in the German newspaper, RIED ECHO, on September 12, 2013:

 

MUNICIPALITY PARLIAMENT Stockstädter decides to lay stumbling blocks against forgetting

STOCKSTADT. The Community Council decided Tuesday that Stumbling Stones will be laid in memory of those deported during the Nazi regimes.

Bürgermeister Thomas Ra Herschel (CDU) had expected a controversial discussion in April, but his the Council voted in unity. No voice was raised against the resolution proposed in the community of nearly 6000 inhabitants - as well as in many other places in the county at large Gerau - to lay stumbling blocks against forgetting.

 

Even in the committee meetings, this voting pattern became apparent.

***

Here is what the mayor of Stockstadt told the Community Council:

“A good working memory is a prerequisite for the mastery of the present.

The memory of the victims is also a public responsibility. The almost -forgotten private suffering of our missing neighbors can now be preserved in public, the silence will be broken about the past, the future can be designed jointly.”

How I spent my summer vacation…

http://wgntv.com/2013/08/26/ragdale-house-a-suburban-haven-for-artists/

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New cover for paperback of IS IT NIGHT OR DAY?

Coming soon: Paperback edition of IS IT NIGHT OR DAY?

Square Fish Press will release a paperback edition of IS IT NIGHT OR DAY? in March, 2014.

Here is a recent review of the book:

 

http://www.wce.wwu.edu/Resources/NWCHE/Reviews/YAwomenreview.shtml

 

 

Booking school visits for 2013-2014 now!

My mother, who is the subject of my books and a Holocaust refugee, often accompanies me on school visits.  (This photo was taken at Morton West High School in Cicero, Illinois.)