Joanie Schirm
Joanie Schirm won the 2013 Global Ebook Award for Best Biography for her book: Adventurers Against Their Will. Potomac Books will publish the second book, her father’s epic WWII tale, My Dear Boy: A World War II Story of Escape, Exile, and Revelation on March 1, 2019. Joanie is an award-winning writer, photographer, community activist, and retired Orlando, Florida businesswoman. The daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Oswald Holzer, she grew up on a sandy barrier island on the Space Coast of Florida, a place where extraordinary memories are made and pelicans soar. A sought after public speaker, she is internationally known for her highly successful leadership role in Orlando’s hosting of FIFA’s 1994 World Cup USA 1994. She is the proud parent of two adult children, Kelly and Derick, and lives in Orlando with her husband, Roger Neiswender. Her books can be purchased here.
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Approaching this day in history: August 15, 1944: Allied armies invade Southern France
by Joanie Schirm on August 10, 2013 PermalinkFrom the historic Holzer World War II Letter Collection of 400 letters written to and from my dad by 78 Czech writers from 1939 – 1946: a letter from someone who found refuge in Southern France before war broke out. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005470 Letter from cousin Rudolf “Rudla” Fischer in 1939 after he, his wife Erna, and son
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A Birthday Wish from the Past for Valdik Holzer
by Joanie Schirm on July 23, 2013 PermalinkJuly 23, 2013 A BIRTHDAY WISH FROM THE PAST FOR VALDIK HOLZER Today would have been my dad’s 102nd birthday had he lived beyond January 3, 2000. In honor of his birthday and the historic letter collection he hid away after WWII, I’ve cut and pasted below a translated version of his parents’ 1941 letter
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Honoring UN World Refugee Day – June 20th – 74 years hence, my dad’s journey as a refugee
by Joanie Schirm on June 19, 2013 PermalinkDocks in Hong Kong, June 24, 1939 – L to R: unidentified aide to Frantisek Urbana, Leo Lilling (Valdik’s “distant cousin), and Oswald “Valdik” Holzer, a stateless Czech citizen on his way to China after escaping his Nazi-occupied homeland (then the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia) According to the United Nations, every minute, 8 people
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Adventurers Against Their Will finds my dad’s birthplace for a photo op!
by Joanie Schirm on June 11, 2013 PermalinkThrough the goodness of reader Petr Šraier, my book Adventurers Against Their Will has made it to my dad’s birthplace, Benesov, for a photo op that warms my heart! As the star of the story is my father, Dr. Oswald “Valdik” Holzer, it seems fitting that the book should visit the place of his birth – see
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How do you know the value of your writing?
by Joanie Schirm on May 31, 2013 PermalinkAs a writer, I work day in, day out in solitude. Some mornings I’m at my desk at 6:30 a.m. Other days I feel guilty because I don’t arrive in my writing room (converted upstairs game room) until 8:30 a.m. Most days I take an hour for lunch, solely to give my eyes a rest;
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Against all odds, life goes on – the proof of it all!
by Joanie Schirm on May 28, 2013 PermalinkThis Geni.com flow-chart image at the bottom of this blog accompanied an email from a newly found distant relative: The “You” that it’s drawing attention to is “Rafi Kornfeld” from Israel. The connection from him to me begins on his chart with Bertha Kantor who was sister to Ernestine (my great aunt) and sister to my grandmother: Olga (Orlik) Holzer.
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Sometimes Life Offers No Easy Answers; Only Questions That Need Answering
by Joanie Schirm on May 25, 2013 Permalinkhttp://www.floridatoday.com/article/20130518/OPINION/130516017/-1/OPINION03/Letter-Woman-brave-arrange-bombing-suspect-s-burial Sometimes Life Offers No Easy Answers; Only Questions that Need Answering… We each see life from our own eyes and hearts – brought about by our own life experiences. What is the “peaceful side of faith?”…What actions do we take that show our own path to this is sometimes a difficult answer? I’m trying to
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May 21, 1939 – A Trip That Never Ended
by Joanie Schirm on May 19, 2013 PermalinkSeventy-four years ago, Oswald “Valdik” Holzer started a trip that never ended. Beginning a twisted worldwide journey, on May 21, 1939 my father forever departed from his homeland; only to return “home” again as a visitor. As he left, he said goodbye to his parent’s at Prague’s Woodrow Wilson train station. Two months earlier, his