A Wolf in the Attic: The Legacy of a Hidden Child of the Holocaust

by Sophia Richman

A Wolf in the Even though she was only two, the little girl knew she must never go into the attic. Strange noises came from there. Mama said there was a wolf upstairs, a hungry, dangerous wolf . . . but the truth was far more dangerous than that. Much too dangerous to tell a Jewish child marked for death. One cannot mourn what one doesn’t acknowledge, and one cannot heal if one does not mourn . . . A Wolf in the Attic is a powerful memoir written by a psychoanalyst who was a hidden child in Poland during World War II. Her story, in addition to its immediate impact, illustrates her struggle to come to terms with the powerful yet sometimes subtle impact of childhood trauma.In the author's “As a very young child I experienced the Holocaust in a way that made it almost impossible to integrate and make sense of the experience. For me, there was no life before the war, no secure early childhood to hold in mind, no context in which to place what was happening to me and around me. The Holocaust was in the air that I breathed daily for the first four years of my life. I took it in deeply without awareness or critical judgment. I ingested it with the milk I drank from my mother’s breast. It had the taste of fear and despair.”Born during the Holocaust in what was once a part of Poland, Sophia Richman spent her early years in hiding in a small village near Lwów, the city where she was born. Hidden in plain sight, both she and her mother passed as Christian Poles. Later, her father, who escaped from a concentration camp, found them and hid in their attic until the liberation.The story of the miraculous survival of this Jewish family is only the beginning of their long journey out of the Holocaust. The war years are followed by migration and displacement as the refugees search for a new homeland. They move from Ukraine to Poland to France and eventually settle in America. A Wolf in the Attic traces the effects of the author’s experiences on her role as an American teen, a wife, a mother, and eventually, a psychoanalyst. A Wolf in the Attic explores the impact of early childhood trauma on the author’ Repeatedly told by her parents that she was too young to remember the war years, Sophia spent much of her life trying to ”remember to forget” what she did indeed remember. A Wolf in the Attic follows her life as she gradually becomes able to reclaim her past, to understand its impact on her life and the choices she has made, and finally, to heal a part of herself that she had been so long taught to deny.

Genres: Holocaust, Nonfiction, History

294 pages, Paperback

First published January 11, 2002

About the author

Sophia Richman began life as a Jewish child marked for death in war-torn Poland. She survived in hiding during her toddler years and wrote to tell about it many years later. Her first book published in 2002 is the award-winning memoir A Wolf in the Attic: the Legacy of a Hidden Child of the Holocaust (Routledge). Unlike much of Holocaust literature, this book does not only focus on the survival story but also explores the long term impact of her childhood trauma on her life and adult choices. Dr. Richman became a psychologist-psychoanalyst and has been practicing her profession for close to 50 years. In addition to her private practice in New York and New Jersey, she is affiliated with several psychoanalytic institutes where she supervises and consults. She is also a painter. Her long-term interest in the interface between art and healing has led to a new book about creativity and trauma titled: Mended by the Muse: Creative Transformations of Trauma published by Routledge in 2014. This book offers a new theory of the creative process and through numerous illustrations provides an understanding of the healing potential of the arts.

Reviews

[Olena Yuriichuk · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a member of the family, I cannot call myself an unbiased reader.

Even if my acquaintance with Sophia in person happened when I was a little kid, many years of reaching our shared history seem to made me closer to this wonderful and bright Woman, not to mention her book.

It does differ from other memories of Holocaust survivors - not only Sophia was a child who survived the Holocaust, but she became a prominent psychiatrist and managed to process her memories and the life she went through calmly and interesting to those who read it.

We all are from childhood. In the case of the Holocaust survivors and their kids and kids of their kids, some traumas are passed even without knowledge. And you cannot overcome it - not unless you dive deep into your memories and the memories of those who lived. This journey won't be a pleasant one. But it is definitely worth it.

[Chris Bernard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story revealed to me a world and history I’d not absorbed, tragic and unjust. It was also full of enough mystery to engage, albeit a bit maudlin toward the end.
Big hope never left the page.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who knew when I sat in homeroom with Sophia Richman that she was a survivor of the Holocaust. How wonderful that Ms. Richman could so eloquently write about her childhood and do it with honesty and candor. I am proud to have enjoyed her friendship when we were students at the High School of Music and Art.

[Ed Shiley · Rating 4 out of 5]

wonderful book giving a different view of the Holocaust, equally devasting and awful but from the point of view of survivers.