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My Road to Truth
As I watch the endless news stories about the Ukrainian people driven from their homeland by a ruthless tyrant, I think of my journey to understand my father’s refugee years and how what I learned changed the trajectory of my life and my view of the world. I look at the face of a refugee…
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Building Peace in the Minds of Men and Women…UNESCO – International Holocaust Remembrance Day
“Building Peace in the Minds of Men and Women”…UNESCO – International Holocaust Remembrance Day Joanie Holzer Schirm It wasn’t until I was in my 50’s that I learned there was an International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, now commonly known as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The day was created…
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RARE EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT IN OLD LETTER DETAILS SHANGHAI ARRIVAL 80 YEARS AGO
RARE EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT IN OLD LETTER DETAILS MY FATHER’S ARRIVAL IN SHANGHAI, CHINA 80 YEARS AGO – JULY 5, 1939 After escaping Hitler’s growing threat in his occupied Czech homeland, and traveling nearly 10,000 nautical miles from Marseille, France, Oswald “Valdik” Holzer, on July 5, 1939, reached Shanghai. My father was a 28-year-old physician in a…
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A Last Goodbye – 80 years ago
Learn from the past. Change the future. On this day 80 years ago, May 21, 1939, my twenty-seven-year-old Czech Jewish father, Oswald “Valdik” Holzer said his last good-bye to his parents at the Prague railway station. After Nazi-occupation and persecution, dad was driven from his native land. His 1st port of refuge was Shanghai, China.…
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“The Family Mystery That Turned Into a Global Quest.”
As the Growing Bolder media video headline describes, “The Family Mystery That Turned Into a Global Quest,” my life has been a search for understanding over the past decade. “It’s not the “retirement” Joanie Schirm imagined. A family mystery turned into a global quest, a journey of discovery, and a personal transformation into an internationally respected…
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Original Famous Czech Artist Adolf Hoffmeister Poster Travels Home to Prague
Adolf Hoffmeister’s original poster of Hitler was discovered in 2000 in Florida by Joanie Holzer Schirm in the belongings of her Czech-American father Oswald “Valdik” Holzer after his death. The red and black, 17” x 24” poster, drawn circa 1940 before the United States entered World War II, features Adolf Hitler with his arms raised…
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100 Years Ago – December 1918 – Tomas Masaryk on return from Exile
https://youtu.be/MZgf8l56tQg In this video from 1918, at about 8:10 minutes, the Mayor of Benesov, my dad’s Czech hometown, greets Tomas M. Masaryk returning from exile during WWI to become the president of the newly former Czechoslovakia. At the time my dad was six years old. My father’s aunt Valda was married to Jaroslav Marik, the…
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A family tradition of saving the nation. Why truth matters and comes with a duty to speak out.
As I continue to write a series of books about my Czech father’s adventures during WWII during his forced displacement by the Nazis, I marvel how world history ebbs and flows with the same uncomfortable flare-ups of hatred and discrimination. The unique WWII letter collection that my father hid away after the war, often provides…
Steadfast Ink: The Journey Within
MY DEAR BOY: A World War II Story of Escape, Exile, and Revelation
Adventurers Against Their Will
