Phyllis Zimbler Miller's Blog: Phyllis Zimbler Miller Author, page 4

Remembering Pointe du Hoc

Peggy Noonan’s opinion piece of the May 25-26, 2019, print edition of The Wall Street Journal is entitled: “Which Way to Pointe du Hoc?” While the second part of Noonan’s piece is about her speaking at this year’s Notre Dame commencement ceremony, the first part of her piece is about the Allied taking of Pointe du Hoc on D-Day.

She writes:

The week after next marks the 75th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. People will be thinking of D-Day and seeing old clips of the speechifying that marked its anniversaries. I will think of two things. One is what most impressed Ronald Reagan. He spoke at the 40th anniversary, on June 6, 1984, at the U.S. Ranger Monument, and seated in the front rows as he spoke were the boys of Pointe du Hoc.

“Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here,” he told them. “You were young the day you took those cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys.” Many were old now and some wept to remember what they had done, almost as if they were seeing their feat clearly for the first time.

Reading these words brought tears to my eyes, because in the spring of 1972 my husband, First Lieutenant Mitchell R. Miller, and I had stood at the top of Pointe du Hoc looking down at the sea.

Here is what I have written about this experience in my unpublished memoir — OCCUPYING GERMANY: ON THE FRONT LINES OF STOPPING THE RED MENACE:

Chapter 27: April 28, 1972

President Nixon announces that 20,000 more U.S troops will be withdrawn from Vietnam over the next two months, despite the intense North Vietnamese offensive launched in Indochina in the past three weeks. – April 26, 1972

“MILLER, Phyllis Z., Resignation, 03-11-72, Clerk Stenographer, 66th MI Group, OCI Section, CI Division, APO 09108. To travel prior to returning to CONUS with sponsor.” – Notification of Personnel Action

Mitch and I stood at the site of the Allied D-Day invasion during World War II – the audacious landing in Normandy that began on June 6, 1944, and eventually led to the end of the war.

We were the only ones here on this windswept French landscape, the five landing beaches spread below us as Mitch explained the invasion to me.

When we reached Pointe du Hoc, a 100-foot cliff with Nazi concrete gun batteries still visible at the top, I gasped.

“To get off the landing boats and face this cliff, they had to know they would die,” I said.

Mitch nodded.  “Tremendous casualties here.”

Then he added, “By the time my father landed in France, Normandy was already secured.”

The enormity of this military operation was almost too much to imagine, especially as the surrounding landscape was now so barren.

Equally disquieting was the thought that the success of the invasion did not immediately end the war.  The Allied forces had to fight the Nazis for 11 more months after D-Day.

Let us always remember all the men and women since the the creation of the United States who have given their lives, their physical health and their mental health to protect our freedom.

Remembering Pointe du Hoc: Memorial Day 2019

Peggy Noonan’s opinion piece of the May 25-26, 2019, print edition of The Wall Street Journal is entitled: “Which Way to Pointe du Hoc?” While the second part of Noonan’s piece is about her speaking at this year’s Notre Dame commencement ceremony, the first part of her piece is about the Allied taking of Pointe du Hoc on D-Day.

She writes:

The week after next marks the 75th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. People will be thinking of D-Day and seeing old clips of the speechifying that marked its anniversaries. I will think of two things. One is what most impressed Ronald Reagan. He spoke at the 40th anniversary, on June 6, 1984, at the U.S. Ranger Monument, and seated in the front rows as he spoke were the boys of Pointe du Hoc.

“Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here,” he told them. “You were young the day you took those cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys.” Many were old now and some wept to remember what they had done, almost as if they were seeing their feat clearly for the first time.

Reading these words brought tears to my eyes, because in the spring of 1972 my husband, First Lieutenant Mitchell R. Miller, and I had stood at the top of Pointe du Hoc looking down at the sea.

Here is what I have written about this experience in my unpublished memoir — OCCUPYING GERMANY: ON THE FRONT LINES OF STOPPING THE RED MENACE:

Chapter 27: April 28, 1972

President Nixon announces that 20,000 more U.S troops will be withdrawn from Vietnam over the next two months, despite the intense North Vietnamese offensive launched in Indochina in the past three weeks. – April 26, 1972

“MILLER, Phyllis Z., Resignation, 03-11-72, Clerk Stenographer, 66th MI Group, OCI Section, CI Division, APO 09108. To travel prior to returning to CONUS with sponsor.” – Notification of Personnel Action

Mitch and I stood at the site of the Allied D-Day invasion during World War II – the audacious landing in Normandy that began on June 6, 1944, and eventually led to the end of the war.

We were the only ones here on this windswept French landscape, the five landing beaches spread below us as Mitch explained the invasion to me.

When we reached Pointe du Hoc, a 100-foot cliff with Nazi concrete gun batteries still visible at the top, I gasped.

“To get off the landing boats and face this cliff, they had to know they would die,” I said.

Mitch nodded.  “Tremendous casualties here.”

Then he added, “By the time my father landed in France, Normandy was already secured.”

The enormity of this military operation was almost too much to imagine, especially as the surrounding landscape was now so barren.

Equally disquieting was the thought that the success of the invasion did not immediately end the war.  The Allied forces had to fight the Nazis for 11 more months after D-Day.

This Memorial Day of 2019 let us remember all the men and women since the the creation of the United States who have given their lives, their physical health and their mental health to protect our freedom.

In Search of Rom Com Films

I just watched the RoadmapWriters.com webinar “Deconstructing RomComs” presented by entertainment industry professional Morgan Pichinson, who talked about what makes a good romantic comedy script.

In the webinar Pichinson said that a romantic comedy has to have elements of romance and comedy. In addition, the protagonist needs to meet the potential interest in what is called a “meet cute” situation, which must be believable.

Pichinson quoted from an article by Liz Meriwether titled “Sex Is Funny. Love Is Funny. So Where Are All Our Great Romantic Comedies?”:

A great romantic comedy is driven by two characters who want each other, in spite of themselves. Maybe they end up together at the end and maybe they don’t, the important thing is that they want to have sex with each other. Desire isn’t necessarily cute or sweet. Desire is sometimes a dragon that needs to be slayed, and it can push a character to the dizzy, insane places where the best comedy lives. A great romantic comedy is hot. … The most important thing is chemistry between the stars, and that has nothing to do with the amount of actual sex the characters have.

My husband Mitch and I fell in love with romantic comedies when were were stationed with the U.S. Army in Munich and the Munich City Museum had a Hollywood film series. Mitch and I were introduced to the classic romantic comedies, including BRINGING UP BABY with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant (talk about the “meet cute” setup!) and HIS GIRL FRIDAY with Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant. (FYI: No sex in BRINGING UP BABY or HIS GIRL FRIDAY. But sexual tension — off the charts!)

Pichinson also talked about the difficulty with romantic comedies in TV series. She said, “How do you keep a love story going from season to season?”

In connection to what she said about romantic comedy TV series, I have just finished binge watching six seasons on Netflix of the Canadian TV series REPUBLIC OF DOYLE (takes place in Newfoundland). The writers did an amazing job of creating believable situations in which the two seemingly star-crossed lovers are brought together and pulled apart (several times!) until at the end … (You’ll have to watch the series yourself.)

Of course, REPUBLIC OF DOYLE is not only a romantic comedy. It is also a comedic mystery show. The characters of Jake Doyle and his father are private investigators. And this fits nicely with Pichinson’s advice for romantic comedy movies:

These can no longer be simple — they must have a bigger element. And this bigger element can attract male viewers to what as a genre is traditionally viewed as skewing heavily to female viewers.

Pichinson said that rom com film writers can incorporate what men like into a rom com plot using multiple genres — maybe some action. “It’s almost tricking men,” she said, to go see a rom com film.

Since falling in love with romantic comedies, Mitch and I have written several rom com film scripts. And our rom com film script HOT POTATO has plenty of action, partly inspired by experiences we had while living in Europe.

If you’re a writer of romantic comedies or even a lover of romantic comedy films and TV — get Morgan Pichinson’s RoadmapWriters.com February 10, 2019, webinar “Deconstructing RomComs” (not an affiliate link.)  And while you’re on the RoadmapWriters.com site, check out the other offerings. I’ve gotten valuable advice from all the ones I’ve taken.

And read Liz Meriwether’s TheCut.com September 8, 2016, article “Sex Is Funny. Love Is Funny. So Where Are All Our Great Romantic Comedies?”

Women in Film Panel “Women-Led Financing”: Ask for What You Want

The numerous pearls of wisdom dispensed at the May 6, 2019, Women in Film panel “Women-Led Financing: The Transformation Continues” held at The Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills included the encouragement to ask for what you want.

While this may at first sound simplistic, for women especially this may be hard to do whether from fear of rejection or experiences of being told “no” so many times. Yet as one panelist said, if the answer is “no” you are no worse off than if you hadn’t asked.

The panel was moderated by Adrienne Becker, CEO, Level Forward, and the panelists were:

Sheila Driscoll, Managing Director, Sisters First/Billionaire Foundation
Anita Gou, Founder, Kindred Spirit
Deborah McIntosh, Partner, Endeavor Content
Viviana Zarragoitia, Vice President, Three Point Capital

Reviewing the panel discussion, I suddenly recalled something that I had done in the 1970s at a weekly newspaper in Philadelphia and forgotten about for almost two decades — changing the newspaper’s editorial style so that women could die in their own names.

I hadn’t remembered this until my family visited relatives in Philadelphia when my two daughters were teens and we stopped in to say hello to my old colleagues at the newspaper. That’s when these colleagues told my daughters about my efforts to change the paper’s obituary style.

As we explained to my daughters — before the change a woman’s obit gave the name of her husband, such as Mrs. John Jones (nee White), and her own first name was never mentioned. I worked to change that.

While this incident far in the past may seem unimportant, it is connected to the struggles that women still have in all walks of life for equal representation in their own right.

The Women in Film panel’s advice included, in addition to asking for what you want, collaborating rather than competing and being very clear about your motivation and what you want to accomplish.

Another valuable piece of advice from the panel is repeated in this tweet from @WomenInFilm:

Panelist Sheila Driscoll of The Billionaire Foundation reminded the audience of the adage: “When you make it to the top, don’t forget to send the elevator back down…” It’s part of the #WomenInFilm mission statement: “Women helping women cultivates the next generation.”

Support the Women in Film mission!

Documentary WHO WILL WRITE OUR HISTORY Tells of Warsaw Ghetto Efforts to Preserve History

At previous Passover seders I have spoken about the book “The Warsaw Ghetto Diary of Chaim A. Kaplan” (originally published under the title “Scroll of Agony”). This WWII diary includes descriptions of Passovers in the Nazi-controlled ghetto of Warsaw in which each year food was more scarce.

In the 1970s when I was a reporter and editor for the Jewish Exponent newspaper in Philadelphia I had the privilege of knowing Dr. Abraham Katsh, who translated and published Kaplan’s diary entries, which were written between September 1, 1939 — the day the Nazis attacked Poland and started WWII — and August 1942. Although Chaim Kaplan was deported from the ghetto to a concentration camp and murdered, his diary entries were hidden and then found after the war.

Until I recently saw the 2018 documentary WHO WILL WRITE OUR HISTORY, I was unaware that there was a large organized history project in the Warsaw Ghetto of which Chaim Kaplan was not a part.

Who Will Write Our History tells the story of Emanuel Ringelblum and the Oyneg Shabes Archive, the secret archive he created and led in the Warsaw Ghetto. With 30,000 pages of writing, photographs, posters, and more, the Oyneg Shabes Archive is the most important cache of in-the-moment, eyewitness accounts from the Holocaust. It documents not only how the Jews of the ghetto died, but how they lived. The film is based on the book of the same name by historian Samuel Kassow.

Not all the hidden archive material was found after the war ended in 1945. Some material was found years later while some material may never be found. (There were a very few members of the archive project who survived the Holocaust and knew where the material had been buried.)

Following the screening I attended there was a Q and A with the documentary’s director Roberta Grossman and executive producer Nancy Spielberg. I asked why Chaim Kaplan was not mentioned in the film and was told — I think by the director — that the producers had decided to only feature the members of the Oyneg Shabes Archive and that Kaplan had been asked to take part in this group effort and declined. Then Nancy Spielberg added that Kaplan diary translator Abraham Katsh was her husband’s uncle.

Check out the screenings around the country at whowillwriteourhistory.com/see-the-film.

The South China Sea and the Safety of the U.S.

The third act of Mitch’s and my thriller film screenplay LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS (a Nicholl Fellowship quarterfinalist) concerns the disputed islands in the South China Sea. Mitch is a member of the U.S. Naval Institute — and the Navy has for many years been watching developments in the South China Sea.

These days the South China Sea is frequently in the news and in fiction, including Season 1 of Netflix’s new series PINE GAP. Having watched the final episode of Season 1 yesterday evening, I particularly noted this paragraph in the December 20, 2018, print edition of The Wall Street Journal:

Americans seem generally complacent about the dominance of their armed forces. There is little understanding of the risk that the U.S. could lose a war against China in the South China Sea or that Russian President Vladimir Putin might deter the U.S. from resisting his aggression against our allies in Europe. American military failure could change the world in ways that, for many Americans, are unimaginable.

This paragraph appeared in the Journal opinion piece “The U.S. Military’s Crisis of Imagination: America’s longstanding position of dominance has tended to make strategists and citizens complacent.” The writers of the opinion piece — Douglas J. Feith and Seth Cropsey — should know of what they speak. As the Journal stated:

Mr. Feith served as undersecretary of defense for policy, 2001-05. Mr. Cropsey served as deputy undersecretary of the Navy, 1984-89. Both are now senior fellows at the Hudson Institute.

Perhaps making Americans aware of these risks is best left to the arena of fiction — visual storytelling may make it easier for Americans to understand exactly what risks we face if we become too complacent.

Read the thriller novel LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS on Amazon (free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers) and consider whether U.S. strategists and citizens are experiencing a crisis of imagination.

Commemorating the 80th Anniversary of Nazis’ Attack on Jews on Kristallnacht

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Eighty years ago on the night of November 9-10, 1938, the Nazi government in Germany and Austria perpetrated widespread attacks on the Jews in those countries. In my play THIN EDGE OF THE WEDGE I talk about those attacks:

PZ MILLER:

Two months after we arrived in Munich, I read about an event that the Nazi government had organized before the start of WWII — mass public attacks on Jews throughout Germany and Austria. This event that I had never heard of before became known as Kristallnacht — Night of Broken Glass — also known as Reichspogromnacht. During the attack, the Nazis in Germany and Austria burned synagogues, vandalized Jewish stores, and rounded up Jewish males, sending thousands to concentration camps. Suddenly I realized that I was learning about Kristallnacht while in Munich, Germany, on the exact date of the anniversary of that dreadful night of November 9-10, 1938.

PZ Miller contemplates this before continuing.

PZ MILLER:

For propaganda purposes the Nazis claimed that the attacks carried out on Kristallnacht were spontaneous. Yet when I later got a job in an Army office, I worked with a German woman, Miss Winkler. She told me she had been 17 in Munich when her night school teacher sent all the students home early that evening before the attacks began.

PZ Miller looks around at the audience.

PZ MILLER:

In Arnold Geier’s book HEROES OF THE HOLOCAUST he recounts that on November 8, 1938, one night before Kristallnacht, a German man appeared at the Berlin apartment of Geier’s grandfather. The man said: “Herr Geier, do you remember when you saved a solder on the battlefield many years ago [during World War I]? I am that soldier. I work with the Chief of Police in Berlin and have kept track of you for a long time. Tomorrow night, police and SS will round up adult male Jews all over Germany. I have seen the list, and your name is on it. Do whatever you wish. My debt to you is paid.”

PZ Miller steps to one side and puts on a German child’s pinafore.

PZ MILLER AS ELFRIEDE MORGENSTERN:

I am Elfriede Morgenstern, and I was nine years old in Frankfurt, Germany, the morning after Kristallnacht. My mother’s parents, Jews born in Poland rather than Germany, had already been taken by the Nazis and shipped back to Poland, eventually to be murdered in the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz. My mother, my six-year-old sister Sylvia and I were woken by pounding on the door of Nazi brown shirts demanding my father. Lucky for him he was away on business, and a neighbor who barely knew us — Frau Storch — confirmed that Herr Morgenstern frequently traveled on business. Minutes later my father pulled up in his car in front of the house. He had heard about the attacks on Jews and had returned to check on us. Frau Storch ran to his car and pleaded for him to get away.

Why is this 80th commemoration important in today’s world?

As far right political parties get more powerful in Germany, the U.S. and other democratic countries, all of us must be on guard that we do not allow the trampling of civil rights until it is too late as it was on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany attacked Poland and started World War II — and the fate of six million Jews along with millions of others including Roma, homosexuals, mentally and physically handicapped people, and political opponents was sealed.

At the conclusion of the play THIN EDGE OF THE WEDGE:

PZ MILLER:

Some people say that I am obsessed with the Holocaust. Am I? Or am I obsessed with the thought that these horrific crimes against humanity can happen again — anywhere — anytime — to any group of people.

Judith, the Polish Countess, and the Radio Announcer come to stand besides PZ Miller.

PZ MILLER:

All it takes is allowing the thin edge of the wedge to grow so wide until … there is no turning back.

Read more about the one-act play THIN EDGE OF THE WEDGE here.

© 2018 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Phyllis is available by skype for book group discussions and may be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com

Her Kindle fiction ebooks may be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller — and her Kindle nonfiction ebooks may also be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszmiller

He Said, She Said Sexual Assault Accusations and the Nature of Memory

The September 24, 2018, online The Wall Street Journal carried the opinion piece “A Stumble Down Memory Lane” by Richard B. McKenzie with the subhead “Like Kavanaugh’s latest accuser, people often have ‘gaps.’ They don’t always fill them with truth.” While I am not taking sides on who is telling the truth in the Kavanaugh alleged incidents, I have been giving considerable thought to what is truth in a he said, she said sexual assault accusation when both the man and the woman absolutely believe they are telling the truth.

(This is the subject of my feature film screenplay THE TRUTHFINDER, one of the projects in my Mississippi Divide near future sci-fi world.)



Here is part of what McKenzie wrote in his Journal opinion piece about memories:

Memories are subject to serious flaws, given the limitations and imperfections of the biological and psychological processes of recording, retaining and recalling them. Memories aren’t computer files with exacting recall and retrieval functions. They are often disassembled and stored in “packets” in multiple brain locations. People don’t store the fine details of all daily experiences, because of neuron capacity limitations. Even important details can be missed or lost.

Hence the brain must be selective in which memories it stores and must condense them so that many details are left out. Many eyewitnesses and even victims of crimes don’t take note of the facial features of gun-toting assailants or the make and color of getaway cars.

In retrieving memories, people reassemble them and … fill in the blanks in the condensed version. That process is fraught with the risk of error, especially when heavy drinking or drugs are involved. Crime victims who forget key facial features of their assailants can distort their recalled and reassembled memories so thoroughly that they accuse the wrong person of the actual crime. See the parade of longtime prisoners released because DNA tests prove them innocent.

The more remote a memory is in time, the less reliable it tends to be, partly because of decay and partly because recalled memories can be corrupted by new information. New and old memories can be conflated, sometimes emerging as totally false memories. Memories can be warped by leading questions from therapists, lawyers, journalists or others.

Given this scientific explanation of memory, how are we to ascertain the truth in alleged sexual assault situations? I’m not sure, even if we lived in a future world where all human interaction was video recorded (images and audio) and available to be played back, that we would be able to know for certain in all cases what is the truth. And for now we have only our imperfect abilities to try to ascertain the truth.

© 2018 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Phyllis is available by skype for book group discussions and may be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com

Her Kindle fiction ebooks may be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller — and her Kindle nonfiction ebooks may also be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszmiller

Social Entrepreneurship and Social Responsibility in Today’s World

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I have recently been pondering two interconnected concepts — social entrepreneurship and social responsibility.

Wikipedia says:

Social entrepreneurship is the use of start-up companies and other entrepreneurs to develop, fund and implement solutions to social, cultural, or environmental issues.

And Wikipedia says:

Social responsibility is an ethical framework and suggests that an entity, be it an organization or individual, has an obligation to act for the benefit of society at large.

An interview of me on the Idea Mensch site concerns my social entrepreneurship projects:

Her current priority social entrepreneur projects are: 1) the one-act WWII/Holocaust play THE THIN EDGE OF THE WEDGE that she is seeking help with stage readings around the world for the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht this November; and 2) re-visiting her failure from 25 years ago to have safer sex routinely portrayed/mentioned in books, film and TV. She also has an unpublished near future sci-fi novel and related sci-fi film/TV projects that are cautionary tales for our own future.

Yet it is the concept of social responsibility that in the last few days I have been pondering in light of a new feature film and a new TV series.

First, I have just seen the new film OPERATION FINALE about Israel’s capture in Argentina of Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Final Solution of the Jews before and during World War II.

Full disclosure: I have been working for several years on a feature film version of the true story of Israeli Nazi hunter Tuviah Friedman. It is Tuviah who pestered the Israeli government for years to find Eichmann — and it is Tuviah’s offer of a reward for information leading to the capture of Eichmann — in parallel with the hunt for Eichmann by West German government officials — that led to the snatch of Eichmann in Argentina.

My question of social responsibility in the case of the film OPERATION FINALE has to do with how historical truth is portrayed.

The West German government official Fritz Bauer appears briefly at the beginning of the film OPERATIONAL FINALE with no real recognition given to his ongoing efforts to find Eichmann (nor is Tuviah even mentioned in the film). Yet in the 2015 feature film THE PEOPLE VS. FRITZ BAUER about Bauer’s search for Eichmann there is a brief mention of Tuviah Friedman without any explanation as to why the West Germans want to keep the information about Eichmann’s possible whereabouts secret from Tuviah.

As a screenwriter myself, I do know that many decisions have to be made in the creation of a feature film based on a true story. I am only pondering whose truth should be presented in such undertakings.

With any historical events there are always differing points of view, frequently people are telling the truth as the individuals experienced it. Yet, as I point out in this blog post “The Importance of Getting the Historical Facts About the Holocaust Correct” there are certain facts that are indisputable. And getting these facts wrong can have far-reaching affects.

And in terms of social responsibility, while the following may seem “minor,” it is actually quite important given that I know several bicyclists whose lives have been saved because they were wearing a bicycle helmet when a car hit them.

In the first episode of the new Amazon Studios original series TOM CLANCY’S JACK RYAN, Jack is introduced riding his bicycle to work at the CIA and he isn’t wearing a helmet! Honestly, would an analyst as smart as Jack risk a head injury (or death) that could seriously hinder his ever being able to work again?

I strongly believe that it is the social responsibility of all content creators to model safety behavior whenever possible. This includes portraying/mentioning safer sex in fiction (see my Writer’s Digest article “Why Writers Should Consider Including Safer Sex in Fiction” ) as well as never depicting anyone riding a bicycle without a helmet (unless in a period piece).

In conclusion, I have been binge watching on Hulu the TV series M*A*S*H (there are 11 seasons), which I never saw when it originally aired. In my opinion the level of social responsibility on the part of the show’s creators and writers is amazing. The show is a comedy, yet very serious issues are compellingly presented.

If this blog post has encouraged you to consider what socially responsible actions you have personally undertaken recently, consider helping with my current project — the cautionary play THE THIN EDGE OF THE WEDGE. Click here to read “Kristallnacht 80th Anniversary Commemoration: Confronting History” to learn how you might be able to help.

© 2018 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Phyllis is available by skype for book group discussions and may be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com

Her Kindle fiction ebooks may be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller — and her Kindle nonfiction ebooks may also be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszmiller

The Importance of Getting the Historical Facts About the Holocaust Correct

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I’m immersed in writing a one-act Holocaust play (four actors, no scenery for ease of accessibility) based on firsthand accounts of survivors and saviors. Therefore, when I saw a picture of the entrance to the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz on the op ed page of the June 22, 2018, print edition of The Wall Street Journal, I read the accompanying piece by Jay Winik, whose historian status was included in the brief bio at the end of the op ed piece.

The article titled “Trump’s Critics Desecrate the Holocaust” had as its focus explaining why the U.S. southern border crisis had no comparison to the Holocaust.

What I found very disturbing was how an historian writing a piece about the Holocaust could get a very important fact so wrong.

True, we all get facts wrong, especially facts we cannot absolutely prove — such as the exact number of people (Jews and others) murdered at Auschwitz.



Yet Winik’s error of fact is particularly grievous. The Wall Street Journal article states in a stand-alone paragraph about Auschwitz:

“The SS separated the healthy males, slating them for work details while everyone else was taken to the gas chambers.”

The truth is that healthy females within a certain age range arriving at Auschwitz and not carrying a babe in arms and with no little children clutching onto their skirts were not immediately sent to the gas chambers. Instead they were sent to other parts of the concentration camp complex as were healthy males within a certain age range.

And the reason this error of Winik’s article is so grievous is that there is witness testimony from female survivors of Auschwitz. This important testimony should not be discredited by mistakes such as the one made by Winik in his op ed piece.

The Holocaust play I’m writing includes the firsthand account of a Lithuanian teen who survived Auschwitz. The following is one small piece of this account:

Hundreds died of starvation in the ghetto, and then came the day near the end of 1942 when Judith, her sister and mother were sent to Auschwitz. They survived the selections for the gas chamber, and in the summer or early fall of 1944 were transported to another concentration camp — Stutthof.

I hope that The Wall Street Journal op ed page editors will add a correction to Winik’s article. This is one grievous error that should be corrected by a prominent U.S. newspaper.

Click here to read more of Judith’s harrowing Holocaust survivor account.

Recommended book of Holocaust firsthand accounts: I’m currently reading Arnold Geier’s book HEROES OF THE HOLOCAUST. The author collected firsthand accounts of Jews from a wide range of countries including his own account as a Jew from Germany.

From the Amazon description of HEROES OF THE HOLOCAUST:

A collection of true-life tales about people who risked their lives in order to save others includes those of the ship’s captain who dumped his cargo so that six hundred Jews could be hidden from danger and a German general who saved a Jewish family through his personal intervention.

Arnold Geier’s own survival account includes this:

On November 8, 1938, one night before Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass), a German man appeared at the Berlin apartment of Geier’s grandfather. The man said:

“Herr Geier, do you remember when you saved a solder on the battlefield many years ago [during WWI]? I am that soldier. I work with the Chief of Police in Berlin and have kept track of you for a long time. Tomorrow night, police and SS will round up adult male Jews all over Germany. I have seen the list, and your name is on it. Do whatever you wish. My debt to you is paid.”

Click here to check out HEROES OF THE HOLOCAUST on Amazon.

© 2018 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Phyllis is available by skype for book group discussions and may be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com

Her Kindle fiction ebooks may be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller — and her Kindle nonfiction ebooks may also be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszmiller