The Silk Factory: Finding Threads of My Family's True Holocaust Story

by Michael Hickins

It lives on. Generation after generation, decade after the dying didn't die with the Nazis. The dying, the lying, the horror and the hatred, all live on. The violence, the hate circles the earth still. It remains with us. And in this story from Michael Hickins, as he uncovers his past when learning about his family that no one's ever told him, we learn from him; we see what was sundered remains broken - generation after generation. What do we learn? The loss, the pain, the broken marriages and shattered relationships start in Germany, then an escape to France, the Netherlands, to Cuba and then New York, then further. And decades later, the loss, the pain, lives on inside him too, his failed marriages - the rage that he can barely keep bottled up.
But by the end of this story Hickins finds himself in a different place. Along the way he's met some upright people, and learned about acts of heroism and goodness during those years of utter darkness, directly responsible for his very existence. And he's learned something
" ...not forgiving yourself at all is the best way of passing the behavior down to future generations. I may be inexcusable, but I have to forgive myself for the sake of my children. At least that's what I tell myself ."

210 pages, Hardcover

Published June 1, 2023

About the author

Michael Hickins is the author of the critically acclaimed short story collection The Actual Adventures of Michael Missing (Knopf, 1991). His own adventures include helping his wife run an American eatery in France and becoming an editor at The Wall Street Journal. His work has been published in literary magazines The Quarterly, MonkeyBicycle, New Dead Families, and Sententia. He lives with his family in New York City.

As an indie author, all of Michael's work is DRM-free and intended for sharing. Please share generously. Michael has written rather a lot, and would very much like you to read what he has written. Follow him on the tubes at michaelmissing.com

"Meditative and powerful." -- The Hartford Courant
"Wise and wryly funny tales." -- People
"Bizarre and sometimes baffling picaresque tales. [Hickins'] flip tone, gratuitous sex and violence... snide stories resemble underground comics" -- Publishers Weekly
"Outrageously inventive" -- Library Journal

Reviews

[Bettie Denny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found The Silk Factory to be engaging, unpretentious and moving - and, a reminder of how differently the scars of the Holocaust are worn. Michael Hickins’ journey of self-discovery takes him to places important to his deceased father, a Holocaust survivor who, like many others, never shared his stories, his sorrow, or the reason for his rage. Accompanied by family members, Michael uncovers secrets while he grapples with his own conflicting emotions and his own failures, trying to connect the dots to both his ancestors and his progeny. His trip is full of serendipity, the most precious being the discovery of a village in France that successfully hid refugees, including his father, from the tightening fist of Vichy France. The narrative is fiercely unapologetic, and the lessons both humbling and earnest. A secular Jew, Hickins learns to value the common thread that binds generation to generation – and he teaches us a lot along the way.

[Miranda Ferrante · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Hickins gifted me a signed copy, and since I’m a working journalist for the local paper in the town where he currently lives, Yorktown, New York, I made it a point to read it by the end of the year. It was a perfect way to close out my 25 books of 2025.

Hickins is honest and raw in the most human way. This is one of the most poignant memoirs I’ve read in a long time—a brilliant exploration of identity and the importance of holding oneself accountable. We all have something to learn from our mistakes, from our pasts, and from the lives our families lived before us.

I found myself laughing at times because of this authenticity.

Hickins goes there. He is deeply vulnerable throughout this historical journey, and while it’s clearly a learning experience for him, it also serves as a reminder to readers to ask questions, not hold grudges, and to uncover the truths that shape us.

[Vivian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very emotional memoir that takes you on a journey, not only geographical from New York to France to Germany and back, historical, taking us to World War II times, but also psychological, going back to the past to understand the author’s parents behavior and his behavior towards his kids, finally understanding that the way he behaves it is due to generational trauma induced by history trauma because of events from the Holocaust.
This is a very honest, poignant, at times even funny book that will grip you from beginning to end and leave you thinking about it even after you finish reading it.
I highly recommend it.

[Pam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Of all the Holocaust books I have read, this is probably the most confusing one. It skips around from one topic and one time period to another without transition as Michael tries to tell his parents' stories of their strife through the Holocaust as well as his journey to find out about the silk factory that had once belonged to his family. The story is fine, it is just how it is told that is not particularly good.

[Jo Sorochinsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

A revelatory journey to confront a past shaped by generational rage wrought by the Holocaust and its reverberations. Confronting the source of his survivor father's destructive anger and its impact on Hickins and his intimate relationships, enables him to take on his own demons and stop further damage. Disturbing, insightful, and finally redemptive.

[Kristen Schweizer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A raw and honest telling of family trauma, family history and adventures along the way traveling from NY to France to Germany and back again, articulating it all for us readers. Happily recommend this beautifully-written book!

[Audrey Birnbaum · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bold, honest, emotional memoir you will not want to put down

I picked up the Silk Factory… and never put it down. Using an economy of words, Michael Hickins bared his soul and allowed me to accompany him on both a road trip and a psychological journey. While his book is ostensibly about the author’s search for a deeper understanding of his family’s unspoken past, fractured family and Holocaust history, it somehow manages to be so much more: self-revelation, social commentary, love letter to his children, and poem. Beautifully written, blatantly honest, and at times irreverent (and funny), Silk Factory is a memoir that deserves to be read by a wide audience