Along my now nine-year writing journey, I’ve encountered many incidents that I believe entail a wink from the cosmos.  This short story involves a nod from the star character of my books-my dad-prodding me from the great beyond.  Let me know if you agree that this sounds like a cosmic wink or feel free to share stories of your cosmic wink tales at joanie@joanieschirm.com

Schwarzenberg Palace, Vienna brass door hanger

The end of 2007 was a reflective time for me. In a month’s time, I was to sell my ownership in the Orlando engineering company I founded seventeen years earlier. Finally, I would transition to a writer’s life. The anticipation was high. So was my anxiety level about this significant life change. To reduce my stress, I tried to concentrate on a string of daily activities.  I spent the entire New Year Eve morning on the dismantlement of Christmas decorations for their annual storage in a small, already crowded closet under a stairway.

That morning, my husband Roger’s related job was to pack the decorations in the closet as best he could among other household goods.  As he arranged one container box upon another in the bulging space, I heard my husband observe:

“You know you really need to store your mother and grandmother’s antique silver pieces in a better way.  Two sharp prongs from the old serving fork are sticking out the side of the bag. Be careful.”

It was apparent when I stored the silver away after a recent family dinner, I’d jammed too many pieces into one of my mom’s two old brown felt bags. Now the fork made known my secret haste. I felt a twinge of guilt to improve the situation, but more importantly, the great Florida outdoors was calling me. I needed to go for my daily exercise walk.

As I’d done each morning for the preceding year in preparation for writing my dad’s story, I grabbed one of my father’s audio tapes to accompany me on the stroll. The tapes were my attempt to recapture stories he’d told endlessly during my youth. I’d forgotten a lot of what was recorded in 1989 and was refreshing my memory to see what I might incorporate into my books.

My neighborhood hikes over old brick streets provided grand opportunities to experience a kind of time-travel back to the mystical places my father talked about.  As his voice transported me, I disappeared into another era, and met relatives whose DNA created my features and blood ran through me.  The tales let me live through his 1930s and 40s wartime escapades along with accounts from his 1950 and 60s medical practice in Melbourne, Florida where I grew up.

Depending on the tape I was listening to, I could be on a steam-puffing train with armed Japanese soldiers occupying China in 1940 or, the next moment, with a rocket scientist my father knew in the 1960’s, shaping the Nation’s emerging space program in Central Florida.  As the pain of the Holocaust kept my dad from telling me much about his parents, stories from his happy childhood gave me a welcome, magical glimpse of what my grandparents Arnošt and Olga were like.   I never tired of hearing my father’s Czech-accented voice as my feet walked in Orlando, but my heart traveled all over the world encountering adventure.

Over the previous months of periodic listening to these audio tapes, I tended to dwell on the history of my father’s early years in Bohemia or China.  That winter day I felt like hearing something different, so I purposely chose a more contemporary, upbeat storyline period from my old home town. By the title, my dad wrote on the tape, “Melbourne,” I thought it would contain interesting cases from his medical practice.

As I walked the first two blocks, I listened to stories of engaging patients. I got to meet the famous architect Henry Hornbostel who designed the campus that is now Carnegie Mellon University and several iconic New York City bridges. Due to some prior military service, my dad called him “Major” Hornbostel. He apparently wintered in Melbourne Beach where he chose my father as his doctor. Like with so many other patients, they developed a friendship. I also ‘met’ Larry Sheldrick, a retired engine and chassis engineer who was involved in the original design of Ford Motor Company’s Model A.  Sheldrick, Ford’s Chief Engineer become a vice president in Detroit with both Ford and General Motors companies. His daughter, Bonnie DeKalb, was one of my mom’s best friends.  Next, on the tape, my dad switched briefly to a story about the Space Age that dawned near our home and his physician role to Werner von Braun among others.

Suddenly my father changed subjects. With a switch to a somber tone, I heard my dad say:

“In 1963 we went back to Czechoslovakia for the first time after the war.   This was a trip of mixed emotions.  My family in Czechoslovakia had vanished during the war.   Only the Marik  family survived…”

From previous times I’d listened to his recordings, I’d gotten used to my father jumping around with his stories, offering them up in no chronological order.  But on that morning promenade I hadn’t expected to amble into this point in his life when he would finally return for a visit to his native land – now dangerously controlled by the Communist Party behind what was known as the “Iron Curtain.” My own mood instantly adjusted as my pace slowed on the uneven bricks beneath my feet.

My dad’s storyline continued in a bittersweet manner with information about the Marik family before and after Nazi occupation ended in 1945. I knew after the Nazis attempted to carry out their “final solution,” the Marik family was among the few remaining Czech relatives stemming from the patriarch Holzer line.  Aunt Valerie “Vala” Marik was my grandfather Arnošt’s sister.  Miraculously, all four Marik family members – Vala, husband Jaroslav, and sons Jiri and Pavel – survived. They became my dad’s link to his vanished family. He stayed close to Aunt Vala’s family throughout his life, visiting them nine more times after the 1963 trip.

He described how his mother Olga’s silver was buried in an orchard at the Marik’s homestead after the Nazis issued a 1941 proclamation to Czechs to turn over their valuables, such as precious gold and silver. To hide what they had, my grandparents gave their silver and jewelry to Vala and Jaroslav. Uncle Jaroslav made a map based on the tree locations in the orchard beside his sawmill in their Bohemian village of Neveklov.  Between two trees he buried the valuables alongside a fine bottle of brandy to open when the war ended.

Soon, the Nazi forces kicked out all the residents of Neveklov and occupied their home, using it as a garrison hospital. Legend has it that the Nazis used the area to practice for their invasion of Belgium. Soon after the Mariks were evicted from their home, Uncle Jaroslav, who wasn’t Jewish, and his oldest son Jiri (George) were sent to different forced labor camps in Germany.  After six years of occupation, when the war finally ended for the Czechs in May 1945, the family returned to their home.

The property had been severely trashed, and the orchard mostly cut down for firewood. The map had been rendered useless. Overtime, Jaroslav and his sons dug there and finally recovered the silver collection, but they never found the brandy.  As my father said later when telling the story, the brandy was never meant to be found as there could not be a celebration with the lost relatives.  At the end of this particular story, my father described how he smuggled the silver out when my parents left Prague by train for Vienna on their way home to America.

My dad followed on with descriptions of the communist government that had taken over in a 1948 coup and its impact on the Marik family and others he knew.  As my feet continued to drift along streets lined by large shady oaks tousled with Spanish moss, I listened to fascinating tales from 1963 about my father’s reunion with old friends and classmates from Charles University medical school. Twenty-five years had elapsed since they’d last been together as young adults before the Nazis arrived.

One of these friends was his Charles University professor of chemistry, Dr. Jan Sula. After WWII, Dr. Sula married Helen Krulis-Randa, one of the debutants of their medical school balls.  Before the war, Helen’s old noble family had a number of manor houses and castles in south central Bohemia.   Her grandfather was a member of one of the 1800’s governments of Emperor Franz Josef of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In each major province like Bohemia, there was a representative in the government of the Emperor known as a “Home Minister.”  Her father was one of these representatives and also President of a stainless steel cartel in Prague. When the Communists came to power after World War II, they picked him up and put him in jail in Prague. The poor man was a very severe diabetic, and of course, the diet he received in prison was not exactly a diabetic diet.  They refused to give him his insulin, and he died in the Communist jail.   The estates and manor house were nationalized by the Communists.  In 1963 when my father and mother arrived, Helen’s mother was living in small, cold water flat in the old part of Prague.

Since my father had known her before the war, Helen wanted my dad and mother to see her while they were in Prague so one afternoon they went for a visit.  The visit was a really painful experience for my father. She was of the generation of his parents, and he was once again reminded of all that had been lost.   This cultured old woman was living in a one-room apartment, a rather large room with a small kitchen and outside toilet, used by a half dozen people with similar apartments on the floor.

Helen’s mother had furnished her apartment with some of the most beautiful antiques that came from their old castles, somehow miraculously saved through the war.  There were three large wardrobes in this vast sprawling room which she used as room dividers to separate space.   In this manner, she had laid out a living room and bedroom.  She still had a collection of beautiful antique porcelain and gorgeous Renaissance paintings hanging on the dingy walls.

When my parents told Mrs. Krulis-Randa that they were going to Vienna after their visit to Prague, she asked my father whether he would take a letter to Vienna for her friend, Duke Schwarzenberg, still living at the Schwarzenberg Palace which originally had opened in 1725. As it happened, one wing of this grand old palace was made into a hotel, and my parents had previously reserved a room for their future stay in Vienna. They agreed to the mission of mercy. The day before they left Prague, Helen Sula delivered to my parent’s hotel the letter from her mother for the Duke Schwarzenberg.

After my father had described on the tape that he’d agreed to deliver the message, he went on to tell several other stories about their train trip from Prague to Vienna. I anxiously listened on, wanting to know if the letter made it to the Duke. At last, he described their arrival in Vienna at the Schwarzenberg Palace.

“I asked at the reception desk where I could see the Duke Schwarzenberg.  They looked at me kind of suspiciously.   Finally, someone said, “Why do you want to see the Duke?”  I said that I had a letter for him.   Arrangements were made for the following day to go to see the Duke.  I was informed that I should wear a dark suit when I went to see the Duke.  Ordinarily, I go around Europe in flannel slacks and sports jacket, but I always carry some better suits so we can go to the opera or something like that.  I got all dressed up, shined my shoes, and went for the appointment.

At the entrance to the palace, I was met by a footman in the proper uniform.   He led me upstairs to the second floor where I was met by the Duke’s secretary who was a middle aged gentleman in a dark cutaway suit.  He instructed me how to behave on my entrance to the Duke’s study.   I was supposed to enter and walk to the desk where he was sitting.  I should stand up behind the desk but not to say anything until the Duke addressed me.   I followed his instructions, but as soon as I entered the room, the Duke got up, walked toward me and shook my hand.  Then he took me to his desk and asked me to sit down.  I handed him the letter which he immediately opened and started to read.  He stared making all kinds of comments in German.  Then he turned to me and started talking in perfect Oxford English.  He asked me how things were in Prague, whether I met his cousin.  When I told him I got the letter through Mrs. Krulis-Randa, he said, “Well, how is the old girl?”  After a short conversation, he said, “I detect some accent in your English.  Do you speak German?”  I said “yes” and from then on we conversed in German.  I stayed there for about ten minutes.  Then we got up and he walked with me to the door and shook hands again.”     

Obviously recalling this exchange with great pleasure, my father closed with:

“And so that is how I ended my audience with the Duke Schwarzenberg.”

As often happened when I listened to the tapes, I walked home feeling as if I’d had a fine morning meeting with my late father.  Although some of our time together included sad aspects, most of it made me joyful for what life entails – extraordinary and ordinary happenings of life.

When I returned home, I decided to take some constructive action to store my Mother’s silver pieces in a more deserving manner.  I pulled the brown felt bags from the closet and laid them on the dining room table, carefully removing each silver piece.  I enjoyed thinking about how some of these were my Grandmother Olga’s secretly buried silver pieces. Somehow they went undiscovered by the rotten Nazi’s as they carried out shooting practice unknowingly standing atop them; a small piece of justice in a world mad with injustice.

It was customary for my Mother in the 1950s to carefully wrap her silver pieces with white tissue paper. It was believed then that the tissue would protect it from tarnishing. Upon my inheritance of this share of family heirlooms, I couldn’t bring myself to dispose of the tissues my mother chose to protect them. So the paper remained in place.  Within the two felt bags were various items I’d never used – like old silver cigarette lighters and small sugar plates. It had been a long time since I polished anything in the bags. I decided it was time to remove all the belongings and reverse their tarnished condition.

As I laid them on our dining room table, I came across something I hadn’t noticed before. In a thicker-then-usual piece of white paper was something brass, not silver.  As I removed it, I held what appeared to be an old doorknocker.   On the front top half, carved in great detail, was a man riding a horse. The horse and his rider were perched atop an emblem of sorts which had the number “8” engraved on it.  Holding it in my hands rubbing its beautiful brass, I found myself smirking. Apparently, at some time in his extensive world travels, my father must have “lifted” this doorknocker.  It seemed uncharacteristic for him and definitely was not my mother’s style. Staring at the doorknocker for a long minute, I wondered how the item made it into the silver collection.

And then it happened. I turned the doorknocker around to look at its backside and there, etched in the brass in black letters was:

Hotel Palais

Schwarzenberg

I loudly gasped, and my body shook.

Sitting nearby, my husband asked what happened.  I described the story I’d just listened to on tape and what I now held in my trembling hands.

Roger smiled as he calmly replied. “That is clearly your father telling you that you need to get busy writing his stories.”  

{Wish granted: 2013 – Adventurers Against Their Will published and won the 2013 Global Ebook Award for Best Biography; 2017 finished manuscript for My Dear Boy (not yet published); two more related books underway in my writing room}

This week has been particularly special as I found myself among like-minded women who value world history, protecting human rights, American democracy, and our core values. They get the importance of freedom of the press. They understand how today welcoming immigrants who are in great danger is as important as it was in the day that America welcomed my endangered refugee-Czech dad. And the thought among us of someone or something causing war, has a way of distinguishing between the things that matter and the things that don’t.

Thank you to hostess Holly Phelps and her book club friend Shastidy Ellerbusch who helped instigate the meeting. And great appreciation to Holly and her mom Jackie McLean for providing a follow-up reference from this particular day:

“Thank you for attending our book club and sharing the inspiration for writing your award winning book “Adventurers Against Their Will.”  You are both an accomplished writer as well as an engaging speaker.  The WWII experiences of your family and their friends provide an amazing and engrossing story for readers.  Your presentation emphasizes the importance of staying vigilant about whom we elect into office.  Our freedom is a great gift that all Americans should do everything in our power to protect.  Thank you again, and we look forward to reading your next book.”

Book Clubs make life better.

—Holly Phelps and Jackie McLean

International Human Rights Day

For the past sixty-eight years, the world has celebrated the December 10^th anniversary of the 1945 United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. With the fresh recognition of what humans can do to one another following the horrific evidence of the Holocaust, the historic UN act promoted the publicizing of the Declaration text. It reads: “to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories.” Now in 438 different languages and dialects, the document holds the Guinness World Record for being the most translated document in the world.

And yet, even with strong Constitutional protections in America, in a 2015 United Nations report, the American Civil Liberties Union pointed out cases of criminal justice, national security, immigration policy and social and economic rights violations. Compared to other liberal democracies, the ACLU reported the US has comparatively a “poor record of upholding basic rights.”

Human rights are not simply a privilege. As a human being, these are certain fundamental rights you should not be denied. Here are ten of the most well-known of the thirty universal rights contained in the UN document. They include the right to trial, the right to a nationality, the right to privacy, the right to peaceful public assembly, the right to own property, the right to education, freedom of expression, freedom from slavery, the right to seek asylum and the right to get married and start a family.

When I think of the importance of protecting human dignity for the whole human family, my mind always plays the lyrics from John Lennon’s song: Imagine.  Look up the words and see how you feel about it. This shouldn’t be such a tough challenge, but injustices continue to play out in America and around the world.

By telling true stories from my family history which includes injustices that caused the loss of life of family and friends, property, and homeland, I’ll never stop working for the protection of human dignity and rights. The path to the goal is education – of the young and old.

Learn more about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf

http://www.un.org/en/udhrbook/pdf/udhr_booklet_en_web.pdf

For more about what’s happening around the world about deterioration of Human Rights:

http://www.voanews.com/a/alarming-deterioration-of-human-rights-worldwide/3617235.html

The Cuban family stayed only a few weeks and then reunited with relatives in Michigan. Freedom is a gift in America that we don’t often stop to think about why it matters. Our “rights” are supposed to protect against people who want to harm or hurt us. They are in place to help us get along with each other and live in peace.

The beautiful Cuban people lost many of their human rights when Castro decided to deny these rights— rights written in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, developed by the United Nations in 1945 after WWII. The first truly universal human rights document for the world, Eleanor Roosevelt led the committee created this document. The Declaration grants rights for all in a list of 30 basic concepts, with #30 being: No One Can Take Away Your Human Rights.

The history of this idea has been around a long time – first documented on a clay tablet in 539 B.C. from statements made by Cyrus the Great. After conquering Babylon, he freed all the slaves to return home and declared people should choose their own religion. In 1791, the US Bill of Rights limited the powers of the federal government and protected the rights of all citizens, residents, and visitors on United States Territory.  It is still a work in progress for America.  With this passing Fidel Castro who took many people’s lives, rights, property, and dignity away – I hope now is a time for the Cuban people to peacefully ask to have their freedom and democracy restored.

This won’t come from building a wall.  It will come through America’s caring attitude and encouragement at this moment in history.  It happened in the Czech lands in 1989 with the Velvet Revolution which restored their freedom from communism.  It can happen again!  In 2011, Roger and I had the privilege of visiting Cuba and met many Cuban people who knew this day would come. To them I say we stand ready to help you enjoy freedom again.

Resource Book Examples

‘Literature Can Help Bring Forward Every Aspect of Human Life.’

(from the book: Essentials of Holocaust Education: Fundamental Issues and Approaches)

An author’s life is never dull.  After almost nine years, I’ve nearly finished my second and third books (My Dear Boy and Steadfast Ink). As they go through final edits, I’ve entered the stage of wonderment in the modern age of publishing which asks: how can these books best meet their appropriate readership?

In the midst of the new, I haven’t forgotten the ‘old,’ the leader of the trilogy, Adventurers Against Their Will.  Published in 2013, the Global Ebook Award Winner still shares with audiences young and old important messages about working for peace by respecting others and protecting human rights.  Adventurers Against Their Will is recommended reading at various places that care about educating future generations such as the National World War II Museum, Holocaust Memorial & Education Center of Florida, and more.

So imagine my surprise and joy when I stumbled on a prestigious book — Essentials of Holocaust Education: Fundamental Issues and Approaches—edited by Samuel Totten and Stephen Feinberg and published in April 2016 that features a recommendation of Adventurers Against Their Will under their section of “Memoirs”:

“Another memoir teachers may wish to consider using in class is Adventurers Against Their Will by Joanie Holzer Schirm. Schirm had had some information out her father’s experiences in World War II but had not realized the extent of what he experienced until after both of her parents died, and she discovered several letters containing revelatory information. She based her book on letters from family and friends to her father. She learned that her father had worked as a doctor in the Jewish ghetto in Shanghai. “Why didn’t the Jews leave Germany?” is answered in several of the letters, where we read how some of Dr. Holzer’s friends tried to relocate to other countries and were unable to do so because of governmental restrictions and/or financial issues. Sponsors were necessary for entry to the United States, and no matter where the Jews tried to move, it was often incredibly expensive to do so. For example, a friend of Dr. Holzer writes on March 6, 2939, asking for an introduction to a cousin of Valdik Holzer who lives in the United States, hoping this cousin will vouch for him and provide him with an “affidavit of support.” Another friend writes him on March 2, 1940, stating that “the visas they {the US} are issuing now are for people who registered at the beginning of May,” and that it will take about two years before they “are called.”  Students who are studying the Holocaust know that those two years will see the implementation of the Nazis plan to murder the Jews of Europe. By reading such letters, students will also learn of the optimism, the pessimism, and the frustration felt by Jews as governments made decisions that impacted their lives in the most profound ways possible.”

Having Adventurers Against Their Will referenced in the same section with books such as Elie Wiesel’s Night, Gerda Weissman Klein’s All But My Life, and Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz, is an incredible honor. I’ve never doubted that the WWII letters my father preserved and the stories he told me in interviews about his life as a forcibly displaced person, bring great value to understanding the history of the Holocaust. They also have significant relevance for today as we find the world trying to help millions of people displaced by war and persecution.

More from Essentials of Holocaust Education:

“Literature is ‘capable of challenging students to examine their own lived lives and world’ (Totten, 2001, p. 32). It also provides students with the opportunity to probe how individuals and groups acted, reacted, and interacted in a world that was turned upside down by the evil endeavors of the Nazis and their collaborators. That said, a cautionary note is called for here: teaching a book, a short story, a poem, or a play in isolation, without placing the work within a historical context, is problematic.  Those who wish to incorporate literature into a study of the Holocaust must choose wisely when selecting such literature. It should be high-quality literature that is thought-provoking, germane to the history being taught, and highly engaging.”

I know my father—Dr. Oswald Holzer—who saved his secret collection of WWII letters to be discovered after his death, would be proud that their thought-provoking and engaging words can help students better understand the past. Hopefully, this awareness will inspire us all to care enough to take action as creating a peaceful and respectful world takes diligent hard work.

Peace.

Joanie Holzer Schirm

What does a Shuttle astronaut, an honorary Brevard County Historian, the wife of a Florida former poet laureate and Joanie Holzer Schirm have in common?  Nothing that I, Joanie, can figure out until February 20, 2015 comes around.  That’s when we, along with some other illustrious authors will read from our books or poems at a Florida Institute of Technology hosted evening event at Evans Library in Melbourne, Florida.

Normally, the life of a writer is a solitary one. At least for me it is as I need total silence to place my words correctly on the computer screen that later produces the word doc that turns into my books.  I’m not one of those writers who has a jazz playing in the background or allows my husband to spend much time in my writing room. I need peace and quiet.

But when an occasion comes up with a willing audience on hand for me to read aloud what I wrote while in hibernation, it feels darn good.  Why? Because as a writer I suffer constant self-doubt. This style event becomes an indicator that someone cares about my work or some tiny piece of it. Just the invitation proves the work must be acceptable beyond the four corners of my writing room. Right?

FIT is a special place for me…it’s where my father, Oswald A. Holzer, MD donated ten years of his life as the Campus Doctor after he retired from his private medical practice.  He built the Student Health program from scratch, donated his salary and time, and then, to top it off;  he and my Mom, Ruth Alice Lequear Holzer established the Holzer-Lequear Endowment for FIT to help students gain their education. It is only fitting that on February 20th  I would speak about the star of my books – my dad. I’ll provide a tiny bit about the backstory of his life before FIT from some readings from my book, Adventurers Against Their Will.

So if you want to help build confidence in a writer (Andrew Aberdein, Ben Brotemarkle, Weona Cleveland, Marcia Denius, Joddy Murray, Winston Scott, Louise Skellings, Scott Tilley, and me), please share your time on February 20, 2015 – 6 – 9 pm at FIT’s Evans Library.  It’s free, and there will be refreshments.

What would my mother have written as a review of my debut non-fiction book had she been alive today? Sadly, I’ll never know as she passed away in January 2000, just six years before Amazon sold its first online book.  What I do know is that Mom never had the chance to offer book reviews as they appear today.  She regularly read the reviews in our local newspaper. On a few occasions, she submitted her own; mostly dealing with books that referred to her birthplace of China. There was no parent I knew that had as much knowledge about ancient China as my mom.     http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/

She would find today’s online book reviews perfect for our modern world. She loved a good book. She loved talking about the author and what may have driven them to the hard work it takes to produce a book. My writing compulsion came from wanting to tell my dad and her story – of their falling in love in China and marrying there on a crisp, autumn day in Peking (Beijing). My parents’ love affair lasted sixty years. They died within two days of each other. Hard on their children. Great for them.

Today, on my Mom’s honored day, just in case for some reason her internet connection isn’t working in heaven, I’ve decided to share with my mom a few of the reviews I’ve received on Amazon thus far. It’s been six weeks since my book debut.  It may appear that I’m being selfish on this day that really belongs to her…but the truth is, like every Mom, she was very proud of me.  She would be glowing when she read them!   I love you Mom.

5.0 out of 5 stars “Adventurers”: affectingly told stories, and unexpected connections, May 7, 2013

By

Carol K Provisor –

This review is from: Adventurers Against Their Will: Extraordinary World War II Stories of Survival, Escape, and Connection-Unlike Any Others (Paperback)

After a fruitless years-long Internet search for a distant Czech cousin, I was stunned to read about his history and wartime experiences in Joanie’s Schirm’s “Adventurers Against Their Will.”

My family has lived in the U.S. for several generations. Except for inheriting a faded, sad 1939 letter from a cousin in Prague pleading for a sponsor to bring his wife and two young children to America, I had no other known relatives living in Europe in the 20th century.

In 2011, the Internet at last yielded up my relative’s name in a short article written by Joanie Schirm. I contacted her immediately, and finally learned what happened to my cousin and his family during the horror of WWII.

Joanie asked for permission to use my name in a book she was writing. “Adventurers” was the surprising result.

Even though I am mentioned in Joanie’s book, and my cousin’s journey–one of several–is so movingly told, I can (nearly) objectively state that Joanie’s writing style is stellar, the historical context woven throughout is fascinating, and the emotional wallop the stories pack is undeniable. A truly compelling read from a talented writer.

5.0 out of 5 stars Adventurers against their will, April 22, 2013

By

Jan Schoenbaum – See all my reviews

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This review is from: Adventurers Against Their Will: Extraordinary World War II Stories of Survival, Escape, and Connection-Unlike Any Others (Paperback)

We are indebted to Joanie Schirm, the daughter of Valdik Holzer (the focal `adventurer’), for sharing the wonderfully rich letters of her father and his friends with us. The book is more than a story of a group of friends, of their trials and survivals (or deaths): Joanie has created a micro-history of a time when Czech Jews and Gentiles were caught up in the expansion of the Third Reich, first into Sudetenland in October 1938 (with the agreement of France and Britain), then followed by the invasion and occupation of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939. The Nuremberg laws limiting what Jews could do, or own, were applied progressively in the `Protectorate’. How hard it must have been for those at threat (my parents included) to understand the murderous intent, and the ruthless efficiency with which it would be implemented. Who could have thought, who even now can comprehend, that organized theft would be followed by confinement, slave labour, and the gas chambers? Joanie’s work, and it was work, involving unravelling the many threads that wound through more than four hundred letters of her father and the other `adventurers’, has resulted in a gripping tale of intertwined lives. The reader is helped through this complex of life stories by Dramatis Personae at the beginning of each chapter, and by Biographies and Timelines at the end of the book. We are moved and touched by the opportunities of escape seized or missed, and by the many photos of the protagonists and their families. A wonderful book. Thank you Joanie!

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5.0 out of 5 stars Holocaust Comes to Life, April 13, 2013

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Nathan H. Chitty (Orlando, FL USA) – See all my reviews

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This review is from: Adventurers Against Their Will: Extraordinary World War II Stories of Survival, Escape, and Connection-Unlike Any Others (Paperback)

Adventurers Against Their Will alternates between letters and providing context for the letters of the Author’s Czech father and relatives during World War II. Europe, China, South America, America are all visited. Great work.

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5.0 out of 5 stars A new approach to learning about the history of the Holocaust., April 8, 2013

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Saundra – See all my reviews

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This review is from: Adventurers Against Their Will: Extraordinary World War II Stories of Survival, Escape, and Connection-Unlike Any Others (Paperback)

A thoughtful way to introduce us to the horrors of the Holocaust. Joanie Schirm is a talented writer, bringing alive the old letters of her father and his friends. Saundra Gray

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5.0 out of 5 stars Well researched and beautifully written, April 1, 2013

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ANN C. MATYAS – See all my reviews

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This review is from: Adventurers Against Their Will: Extraordinary World War II Stories of Survival, Escape, and Connection-Unlike Any Others (Kindle Edition)

This is well researched and beautifully written book that provides a clear picture of how ordinary people reacted to the changes in their lives brought on by WWII. Joanie Schirm brillantly weaves the story of her father, his family and his friends between excerpts of letters between them. These letters highlight their feelings not only about their personal situations and relationships, but also about the broader political events around them.
I had trouble putting it down.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Awe-inspiring, March 31, 2013

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Lauren L. – See all my reviews

This review is from: Adventurers Against Their Will: Extraordinary World War II Stories of Survival, Escape, and Connection-Unlike Any Others (Paperback)

Adventurers Against Their Will is an amazing story about survival, loss, hope and the importance of carrying on the message of generations as they pass. It made me want to run to my parents and grandparents and capture their own life stories before it’s too late. Schirm does a beautiful job portraying the seven letter writers in this book, as they individually travel through the uncertainties of life as a Jew in Europe during WW2. Not only does the reader finish the book feeling as though they’ve learned more about that period in time, but he/she also catches a very real glimpse into the lives of men and women — just like you and me– who lived through that tumultuous time with such grace and dignity.

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MY MOM: RUTH ALICE (LEQUEAR) HOLZER  circa 1960s