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A sad story of separation
With echoes of today’s turmoil around the world with ruthless separation of families, all trying to find a better and safe life, these letter excerpts from my father’s parents writing to him for his thirtieth birthday, are heartbreaking. By this time, torn apart by the Nazis, Dad and his parents had been separated for over…
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A-ha moments
One of the great gifts of this most recent life chapter of nearly a decade is having the freedom to do just what I want. It sounds spoiled, and maybe it is, but I worked long and hard to come to this time of choice for what I do with my time. Conducting research about…
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March 14, 1939 – This day in history for Valdik Holzer
This day in history, March 14, 1939, my father served as he had for the previous seventeen months as a Czechoslovak Army soldier protecting his country in Carpathian Ruthenia in the easternmost Slovakian region. On that day, the republic of Czechoslovakia was dissolved, opening the way for Nazi occupation of Czech areas and the separation…
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Celebrating Human Rights Day – December 10, 2016
For the past sixty-eight years, the world has celebrated the December 10th 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…
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I Love Book Clubs
I LOVE BOOK CLUBS As a non-fiction author, it’s particularly meaningful when you have a chance to connect live with readers who’ve had the experience to “meet” your real life characters. This opportunity recently happened for me when I got an email invitation to attend a long standing book club who’d read Adventurers Against Their…
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Helping Future Peacemakers Understand the Past. A True Story Tells it Best.
From the moment I read the last letter that my grandfather Arnošt wrote to my dad, I knew it held meaning beyond the four walls of my writing room. Dated April 21, 1942, just three days before Arnošt and my grandmother Olga Holzer were taken from Prague on a Nazi transport to their deaths, the…
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Help Build Confidence in a Writer
Help Build Confidence in a Writer…An Evening of Readings February 20, 2015 at Florida Institute of Technology Evans Library… 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…
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Celebrate Literacy Week, Florida! 2015 Kicks off in Orlando!
January 26, 2015: On a perfect sunny day, with music, dance, drama, and book character impersonations, students, staff and dignitaries from Orange County, Florida’s Timber Creek High School kicked off Celebrate Literacy Week, Florida! Florida Department of Education’s annual event celebrates the tremendous success Florida’s students have accomplished over the past decade. Recognizing “reading accelerates…
Steadfast Ink: The Journey Within
MY DEAR BOY: A World War II Story of Escape, Exile, and Revelation
Adventurers Against Their Will
