Earned Title:  Author

Seven years ago, January 11, 2008, I sold my Orlando engineering company.  Having left behind the lofty title of President, I entered my next life chapter with a goal: Published Author. It was a position title I had to earn.

Befuddled as to how to describe my new endeavor, my husband Roger suggested: “Freed Spirit/Writer.”   As I unleashed my creativity, the title inspired me on as an author-in-the-making.  Soon, in a treasure trove of my dad’s secret WWII letter collection, I discovered real life characters with extraordinary stories of survival, escape, and connection. The life-changing experiences of these Czech refugees was brought on by modern history’s most brutal demagogue, Adolf Hitler. Within 5 years, my dad’s correspondents’ tales filled the pages of my first nonfiction book: Adventurers Against Their Will.

In my most contemplative and creative moments as a rookie, I could never have imagined what lay ahead as I earned the title:  Author.  Here are just a few memorable milestones along the way:

2008 – As I researched and began writing my father’s epic WWII tale in a yet to be published book, I uncovered a few correspondents from dad’s letter collection still alive. Old friends from the youth of my late father, I traveled to meet them and delivered copies of their 70-year old letters.  All were stunned and very appreciative. Scattered worldwide in places like New Zealand, Canada, Great Britain, Czech Republic, and the USA, I found descendants of the letter writers.  As time was of the essence to locate these people and discover our commonalities, I turned my attention away from writing my dad’s epic WWII story and wrote what became my debut book: Adventurers Against Their Will. 

December 2012:  After reading advance chapters from the book, Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, provides a cover quote.   “A brilliant and compelling account of men and women caught in the turbulence of war. Part insightful history, and part family drama…it leads readers on a journey into the past.”  Her letter arrived on my birthday.

April 2013 – The book launch for Adventurers Against Their Will is held with Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and other friends at Orlando City Hall. The celebration of print and EBook versions includes donation of 100 books to Central Florida libraries.  Harvey Massey and Massey Services sponsor the book distribution.

October 2013 – Adventurers Against Their Will wins the 2013 Global EBook Award for Best Biography and Best Book Trailer. The powerful storytelling video book trailer is made possible by Bolder Media.

2013/2014 – Numerous Author speaking engagements include: Palm Beach County Public Schools’ annual Social Studies Teacher Symposium; Scottsdale, Arizona keynote, Educators Conference on the Holocaust, Yom HaShoah Keynote at Holocaust  Memorial Resource & Education Center of Florida.

September 2014:  Prague, Czech Republic: TRITON books publishes Adventurers Against Their Will in the Czech language: Dobrodruzi proti své vůli.   Media blitz includes Schirm interviews with leading Czech TV and Radio Praha programs along with other print and e-zine media. After speaking at the US Embassy in Prague (American Center), Schirm gives a lecture about the book at Prague’s Gymnázium Špitálská (high school).

September 2014: Frankfurt, Germany:  The International Tracing Service (ITS), Bad Arolsen, includes the story of Joanie’s father, Dr. Oswald “Valdik” Holzer, in German exhibit. Recounting the stories of Displaced Persons after WWII, Dr. Holzer is the only featured biography wiht a Czech background and one of only 3 American citizens. Joanie and husband Roger Neiswender proudly attend the Exhibit opening at Frankfurt’s Anne Frank Educational Center.

January 2015:  Florida Department of Education chooses Adventurers Against Their Will for 2015 FDOE Recommended Reading list for grades 9-12 as part of Celebrate Literacy week and Just Read, Florida! summer reading.  Alongside classics like To Kill a Mockingbird and A Separate Peace, Orlando author Joanie Holzer Schirm’s book is the only nonfiction set in WWII on the FDOE list and the only native Floridian author!

Adventurers‘ stories prepare students to be compassionate and active citizens, through gained awareness of the importance of protecting human rights. Using primary souce material, students build their research skills and reflect on their own lived experiences as it relates to building a more just world honoring our shared humanity.

What’s next? February 2015:  For Teachers:  Lesson Plans to accompany Adventurers Against Their Will (prepared by APass Educational Group). Free download coming soon on www.joanieschirm.local

2015 Goal: Complete manuscript for book 2:  My Dear Boy – The Discovery of a Lifetime

May your 2015 be filled with unleashed creativity and accomplishments under whatever life title you hold!  

Regards,   Joanie Holzer Schirm

Inspiration for my fateful journey

When you’re an author of nonfiction, reader feedback inspires when you learn you’ve touched a personal chord within someone’s life.   Lately, a couple of heartwarming book reviews of Adventurers Against Their Will, remind me the day-in, day-out grueling research and study is well worth this fateful writing journey.

From Judith Lavitt in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada:

“I was born in Shanghai in 1941 to Jews that had managed to escape the horrors of Europe. My parents were one of the lucky ones in that they were able to leave when they did. They were on the last ship to get out by way of Genoa, Italy on the Conte Verde.  Pavel Kraus, a cousin of Joanie’s she includes in her book, was on this ship along with my parents (Abraham , Adi and Liselotte nee: Stein, Schaffer). Learning this fact alone made me want to continue learning more and more. This book gave me a better understanding of what my parents must have gone through in order to find a haven in Shanghai. As difficult as life was, they were much better off than the people who they left behind.   Shanghai was the only port in the entire word that would accept people without papers. These letters helped me to understand better what went on. After the war my parents as many others wanted the memories to fade so they never spoke about this time in their lives.

My grandparents along with aunts, uncle and cousins all felt that they would be safe staying in Germany. They had lived in Germany for a few hundred years and felt they were Jewish, but German first. They were a well-established family.  Could these horrors be true? Only my parents and one brother survived.

We left Shanghai and arrived in San Francisco on July 22. My brother Bert was born as an American on the 23. At that time no two people in our family had been born in the same country. We left by train for Winnipeg, when Bert was six weeks old.  Life has been good after such a bleak start.

I think this book should be a very important reading for the young. It could happen again.”

From Charles Ota Heller, Annapolis, Maryland, USA: 

“As a Holocaust Survivor–one of Czechoslovakia’s “hidden children” during World War II–I was intrigued when I found out about this book. What I discovered inside the covers of “Adventurers Against Their Will” was a series of remarkable stories. Author Joanie Holzer Schirm discovered an amazing gift left by her father: brightly-painted Chinese boxes which contained a treasure trove of letters. They are letters to and from her father’s friends and family–those who escaped Czechoslovakia from the Nazis and scattered around the world, as well as those who stayed behind and eventually perished at the hands of the Germans. It is one thing to be in possession of such correspondence and to have had the benefit of one’s father’s stories. It is another to write an interesting, coherent, dramatic, exciting story which keeps the reader turning pages.

Ms. Schirm does this beautifully. With so many individual tales, so many characters, and so many places, it would be easy for the reader to become confused. But, she uses skillfully a “Dramatis Personae” at the beginning of each chapter, along with a timeline at the end of the book, both of which allow the reader to remain engaged and informed. I know from personal experience how difficult it is, when writing such a book, to mix personal stories with historical events. The author does this masterfully, writing with emotion and feeling–informing, educating, and creating suspense. “Adventurers Against Their Will” is a must-read. It is for anyone who embraces inspirational stories of people who expect to lead ordinary, happy, lives, but end up having to overcome hardships and calamities thrust upon them by forces of evil.”

The photo is of my father’s 1939 ship ticket from Marseilles to Shanghai – his place of safe refuge until early 1941 when he made his way to America.   The high drama I write about in my books can’t be made up. These two book reviewers also lived early lives filled with life-threatening danger. Luckily, as with these two reviewers, the stories I write about end with rebuilt lives in a civilized society. May we remember civilized societies, as was Germany’s in the early 1930’s, are often fragile.  We must never forget the importance of honoring our differences and championing human rights.   

Joanie Holzer Schirm signing Prague’s Triton publishing company contract for Adventurers Against Their Will to be in Czech language. March 2014

As I held my pen to sign this Triton publishing agreement, words from my 1992 Walt Disney World Dreamers and Doers Award came to mind:

Somehow I can’t believe there are any heights that can’t be scaled by someone who knows the secret of making dreams come true. This special criteria, it seems to me, can be summarized in Four C’s. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy…and the greatest of these is confidence. When you believe a thing, believe it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably – Walt Disney

Unquestionably, my father’s life story and the contents of his treasure trove of WWII letters are a hymn without sentimentality to the magnificence of the human spirit.  The evergreen lessons they relay about protecting human dignity are meant to be heard across the globe. From English, to Czech, to who-knows-where next – we must keep and preserve all that is known in trust for those who come after us.

The small beginnings of this story began some seventy-five years ago when my father was displaced in 1939 from his Nazi-occupied Czech homeland to China. There, he sat at various desks in Shanghai, Tsingtao (Qingdao), Tientsin (Tianjin), Ping Ting Hsien (Pingding County), and Peking (Beijing), writing letters to his friends and family about what was happening to him. On occasion, surrounded by raging typhus epidemics, he observed bloody battles between Chinese and Japanese armies. Next, he found himself in the midst of cultured conversations at the finest hospital in the Orient. As a physician serving Chinese patients, he worried about his own family and friends who were trapped behind in Nazi-territory or displaced like he somewhere in the war-torn world. His gripping experiences throughout China seemed endless.

Somehow in the midst of turmoil, he saved 400 letters from 78 friends and relatives. He kept them safe to store away after the war – only to be discovered upon his death. So now it seems fitting that Adventurers Against Their Will, about seven of his correspondents and the magnificence of the human spirit, would be published in my dad’s native tongue.  Sometime in 2015, Triton Publishing company of Prague will display the results of this foreign rights agreement to produce the book in Czech.

A special thank you goes to Prague’s Jana Gigov and Lenka Svobodova for elucidating what I’ve written in English to make this Czech-language publishing dream come true.  Na zdraví!

And to all you writers who wish to have your book reach a global market… this serves as a reminder to pay homage to Walt’s secret “Four C’s.”  Big dreams can come true!

Remembrance + Hope – A Common Cause for Humanity

It would seem to most that the United Nations-sanctioned International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27 and Chinese New Year this January 31^st would have little to do with one another. And yet during my father’s life, and now in my own daily writing, they hold a key to a common cause for humanity.

Over the past six years as I’ve uncovered my father Oswald Holzer’s lost past within a treasure trove of his WWII letters, I’ve reconstructed aspects of the daily lives of Czech family and friends as they dealt with an unfolding Holocaust they did not foresee. These magnificent primary sources, written by seventy-eight people, tell of a storied Czech past suddenly engulfed with Nazi hate. They detail Nazi intolerance for those of different ethnic origins, religious or political beliefs, or physical and mental infirmities. The genocide that followed the hate included forty-four of my relatives. Among them were my paternal grandparents, Arnost and Olga Holzer, and great-grandmother Marie (nee Porges) Holzer.

So how does this story relate to Chinese New Year? What most people don’t know is that from 1938 to 1941, Shanghai, China became a haven for some 20,000 threatened European Jews who made their way to Shanghai’s free seaport to escape Nazi-persecution. In Shanghai in1939 when my dad arrived, there was no Chinese government. The Japanese had ousted the Nationalist government in 1937, so there was no authority at the seaport to exercise passport control or immigration. As a result, for a short period, anyone could land without having to show entry papers.

For my young Jewish father in this far away world, he emerged from the darkness of his Nazi-occupied Czech lands into this far east land of light, engaged in its own turmoil of Chinese versus Japanese soldiers fighting for control. When Dad arrived, he had no idea of the destruction that lay ahead back home for family and friends.

Trying to fit in, Dad embraced the Chinese culture, learned the language, and as a physician cared for their sick. In Peking (Beijing) in September 1940, he met and fell instantly in love with my American missionary mother, Ruth Alice Lequear. They quickly married and eventually found permanent refuge in Florida where they lived out their sixty year love affair. In recognition of the hope and inspiration it provides, my parents always celebrated Chinese New Year.

The UN resolution which established International Holocaust Remembrance Day urges every member nation to honor the memory of Holocaust victims. On January 27, I will read aloud the forty-four names of family members who perished. The personal register I will read from I call “Valdik’s List” as my dad typed it in 1993 when the movie Schindler’s List premiered. It was only then that my brother, sister, and I knew the extent of loss in our own family.

And soon after this important day of remembrance, I will turn my attention to how Chinese New Year, known as the spring festival, reminds us to cherish life through its colorful activities and hopes for the advent of spring.

Celebrating life should always be accompanied by remembrance of the people, places, and events that define our past. It is essential if we are to learn lessons from the past. Without this memory and continuity, we will have no sense of purpose to support our common cause for humanity to bring about a better, more peaceful, future for all.

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

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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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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