Hanna Perlstein Marcus's Blog, page 12

No New Year’s Resolutions

I have no New Year’s Resolutions for 2015. I don’t have to live up to any promises or strict goals that I have set for myself this year. Like most people, I always have difficulty meeting the ambitious objectives that seem so feasible on January 1st, but somehow fade away not long afterward.

But I do have dreams for the coming year. I dream that Sidonia’s Thread will continue to enjoy the success that it has attained over the past few years and filmmakers will take notice. I dream that readers’ lives will be inspired and changed in positive ways by my story. I dream that my new book, whose working title is The Greenhorns, will find the right publication method for a story that has never been told. I dream that joy and happiness will spread its wings over my family.

I dream that immigrants who wish to breathe free can find refuge in America, just as my mother and I did many years ago, and that we can be a nation where some may have more than others, but there are no have-nots. (I borrowed that notion from the great philosopher Mortimer Adler.)

I dream about a perfect gluten-free, sugarless chocolate cake. I dream that good health will sustain me and allow me to see my dreams come true. And if I only have that, I will be satisfied.

 

 

 

DON’T NOT VOTE!

Photo courtesy of The Springfield Republican

Only three months after arriving in America in 1949, my mother was already in civics class in order to prepare for her citizenship exam five years later. Her classes were offered at the Chestnut Street School, not too far from our apartment on Osgood Street, in the north end of Springfield, Massachusetts.

Subjects included English vocabulary and grammar, the political and governmental structure of the United States, and the basic tenets of the Constitution. In addition to working every day at a dress factory sewing ladies garments and raising a daughter on her own, she plugged away at her studies, applying herself to her homework and attending class several nights a week.

She was not the only one in our community attending night school to earn her American citizenship. Almost everyone in our enclave of newly arrived Holocaust survivors went along with her. Calling one another, di grine, or the greenhorns, they yearned to be citizens of a country where they would not need to be concerned about religious persecution or possible annihilation. They concentrated on their civics studies with zeal.

This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of my mother’s attainment of citizenship. So many of the members of my community became citizens in 1954 that a celebration party occurred in early 1955 to honor those who had finished their studies and earned their citizenship certificate. The Jewish Weekly News reported “a citizenship party on Saturday night, February 12, 1955 at the Jewish Community Center. The large number…who recently received American citizenship will be honored…”

The opportunity to elect who would govern them on the local and national levels was a right of freedom they did not possess in their homelands. They took note of all the candidates at election times, and took great care in voting for those who they felt would represent them best. Many of the issues they faced sixty years ago, like immigration, minimum wage, health care, and worker’s rights remain today.

Among the notes my mother took in her classes, which are still found in her textbooks, this simple admonition appears, “Don’t not vote.” Through this unintentional double negative, my mother expressed her emphasis on the importance of exercising the vote. Sometimes we may think it does not make any difference whether we do or don’t, but the power to use the vote can change a do-nothing congress or a corrupt state or local government. My mother never took her voting rights for granted, even in her old age.

Tomorrow is the day to use your power and ensure proper democratic representation. DON’T NOT VOTE!

SIDONIA’S THREAD is a winner!

I am so proud that SIDONIA’S THREAD has been named the winner of the 2014 BEST KINDLE BOOK for nonfiction. Thanks to the Kindle Book Review and Digital Book Today for their cash and promotional prizes, and also Bargain Books, Kindle Boards and Author Marketing Club for their promotional and membership prizes.

When any author writes a book from the heart, like SIDONIA’S THREAD, she dreams that her story will resonate with as many readers as possible. While I am heartened by the readers’ responses to the strong character of Sidonia, I am also energized to write more about the refugee community that surrounded me as a child growing up in Springfield, Massachusetts with my mother. I hope that my current work in progress: THE GREENHORNS will capture the imagination and attention of the same readers and a whole new set of curious book lovers.

 

 

Sidonia’s Thread Is Now a Finalist

 

Sidonia’s Thread has moved up in the awards process for the Kindle Book Review’s   Kindle Book Awards. It has been chosen as one of five FINALISTS for non-fiction. Winners will be announced in October. Thanks Kindle Book Review and all of the literary review boards that have chosen Sidonia’s Thread as a finalist for an award over the past two years. I am very grateful! Watch for the follow up book, working title: The Greenhorns.

 

Sidonia’s Thread Chosen as Semifinalist for Kindle Award

Thanks to the Kindle Book Review for choosing Sidonia’s Thread as a semifinalist for the 2014 Kindle Book Award!. I am proud and humbled to add this distinction to the many accolades Sidonia’s Thread has received since its publication. Finalists for the Kindle Book Awards will be announced in the fall of 2014. Check here for the full list of semifinalists.

The Fleetingness of Time

As we approach the seventieth anniversary of the end of World War II and the liberation of Holocaust survivors from their ordeals in internment and death camps, I am reminded of the fleeting nature of time. Growing up in a community of Holocaust survivors, I viewed firsthand the strength, endurance, courage, and sheer determination of those who suffered through incredible horrors. They raised children in America with the hope that they would be free of overt bias and the threat of extermination.

Last week, one of my childhood friends among “the greenhorns” of Springfield, Massachusetts passed away after a long battle with breast cancer. She was raised with the value of striving for excellence, independence of spirit, and generosity of soul. Her strength was instilled by her parents, sometimes with exceedingly high expectations, but reflective of their harsh past and their dreams for the future.

We lost touch through the years for which I am to blame. Time passed by so rapidly almost unnoticed, yet my memories of her and her family remain as clear as ever. Most of the survivors I knew are gone now. Their offspring were supposed to live yet for a long time to come, bearing witness to the adjustments their parents endured by coming to a new country and reconstructing a life shattered by unabashed evil.

But, against our will, as we of all people should know, life’s intended path may be cut short. Yet my friend surpassed every expectation during her life, leaving her indelible mark on her community, workplace, and family. She, indeed, left a legacy of excellence of which her parents would have been justifiably proud.

Brigitta, I will think of you always.

Free Book Dude Giveaway!

Proud to be among the authors whose books are giveaway offers to entrants in the Free Book Dude April Showers of Books Giveaway! Enter in April, 2014 and you can win a print or digital version of some great books from Michael Richan’s The Bank of the River to Jane Yates’ Paradox Child and, of course, a print or Kindle digital version of Sidonia’s Thread (click here).

 

It’s Black History Month!

It’s Black History Month! Here are some favorite quotes from great black leaders over the past generation or two. Thirty Quotes

My favorite: Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

It sounds like a statement Sidonia made to me many years ago.

 

 

Whose Story No One Knows

If you have heard me speak lately about Sidonia’s Thread, you know that these days I make reference to Thomas Hardy’s poem, “The To-Be-Forgotten.” No piece of literature has captured my unconscious reason for writing Sidonia’s Thread more than this ode, written at the turn of the twentieth century. The part that remains in my heart and now my conscience the most is as follows:

“…They count as quite forgot;

They are as men who have existed not;

Theirs is a loss beyond loss of fitful breath;

It is the second death.

We here, as yet, each day

Are blest with dear recall; as yet, can say

We hold in some soul loved continuance

Of shape and voice and glance.

But what has been will be-

First memory, then oblivion’s swallowing sea;

Like men forgone, shall we merge into those

Whose story no one knows…”

 

Did you have someone in your life in the past whose story no one knows except perhaps you? I hope you will put his or her story in the written or oral record.

To the fans of Sidonia’s Thread… yes, I have started writing the next book!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The “Mem” in Memoir

“Often my mother and I would stroll down Dwight Street and stop at Klibanoff’s Delicatessen…Just a few doors down we entered Ruby’s Market…When we were finished, we walked a few more blocks to Magaziner’s Bakery and ordered a couple of cupcakes and a half loaf of seedless rye bread…Crossing the street we landed at Shankman’s Pharmacy…”

This short excerpt describes my memory of a typical 1950’s stroll with my mother in my childhood neighborhood in Springfield, Massachusetts. How did I remember it enough to describe it in such detail? I used some of the techniques which mnemonists employ to remember the exact order of cards in multiple shuffled decks, a long list of names, or the exact images in a scene, but at the time, I didn’t know I was doing it! Long before I read Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein, I was creating what he refers to as “memory palaces” to store these images relating to certain points in my memory. My ability to hold on to and recount these precious images played a large part in relating the story of Sidonia’s Thread, which describes growing up with my single mother and the events that shaped our lives.

It has only been in the last millennium that humankind has lost the art of memorization. Until then, it was considered an art, a sign of civility and culture. With the creation of books and recently, the development of smart devices like computers, tablets, and smart phones, memories stored in the brain’s hard drive were no longer needed. Our reliance on these tools that are standard in today’s world has led to a diminution of dependence on our internal tools to remember the facts about the earth around us.

When writing a memoir of events that took place over a half century ago, I had no choice but to prod my personal recollection of events and of places, which in many cases, no longer exist. So let me guide you along the process I used to remember this little scene from Sidonia’s Thread.

First, I used the Osgood Street apartment building in which I lived as a child as a “memory palace,” the space in which I stored the images that evoked the memories of the streets, shops, and people that inhabited the six block area I called home. I imagined I was strolling down the same streets as I had when I was eight years old. My journey began at the front door of the building and continued as I walked up to the corner of Osgood and Dwight Streets.

As I walked south on Dwight Street, the first image I recalled was one of a corned beef sandwich on rye bread with a dill pickle, more the smell than the sight of it… Klibanoff’s Delicatessen.  Next, the image of a box of Rice Krispies appeared, its name in big bold white letters, as I entered Ruby’s Market, our neighborhood grocery store. Walking down the same side of Dwight Street, I envisioned the industrial bread slicer at Magaziner’s Bakery and then I instinctively crossed the street to buy my toothpaste at Shankman’s Pharmacy.

The images evoked made it relatively easy to go back to my early daily life and remember the places and people I met. Often, I would have to begin anew at the Osgood Street apartment building and repeat the journey to prod my memory, but each time, I attempted to stretch my skill to include another neighborhood image, like the giant poster of a smiling Miss Rheingold (“My beer is Rheingold the dry beer”) or the men gathered in front of Chernick’s Kosher Meat Market.

Perhaps you have forgotten some details of your childhood that you would like to remember but find it to be a formidable task. Try this simple memory exercise and see if it works for you. Send me a message to let me know how you do.