Shulamit Reinharz is the author of the book Hiding in Holland: A Resistance Memoir. The book incorporates material from a memoir written by her late father Max Rothschild, a Holocaust survivor. Reinharz's other books include 100 Jewish Brides. She is the Brandeis University Jacob Potofsky Professor Emerita of Sociology.
Q: Why did you decide to write this memoir?
A: I was a professor at Brandeis for 35 years. I did a lot of writing and publishing, so it was natural for me to think of topics I’d like to write about.
The other thing is that my husband and I discovered a treasure trove of documents my father had kept since he was a baby. He was sort of a sloppy guy—I was not surprised to see that it was not in great shape, wasn’t indexed, but there was a lot of it. I said, I have to read this!
Another factor was that in 2017 I had planned to retire, which meant I wouldn’t have any obligations, I was sort of free. We attacked a bucket list of places we’d like to go, and wherever I went, I was trying to find things to help me understand people who survived the Holocaust. And then one day I sat down and said I’d write a book.
People ask when I started the book—it was when I was born. My father talked about the Holocaust all the time. It took a long time to write it—everything was interesting.
Q: How did you balance your father’s writing and your own writing in the book?
A: I didn’t think in terms of balance, it would have been artificial—but I didn’t want it to be completely imbalanced. My father had written a memoir. I started the book talking about how I wrote the book…I thought the closest I could have my words and his words to each other would be good.
There were things my father didn’t talk about, and I provided information—what Eichmann did in the Netherlands, for example. My father wrote about his experiences. I let the differentiation stay in place—he writes about what he saw and did, and I write about the situation they were in. He also had experiences he called “miracles.”
Q: As you worked on the book, did you find anything surprising, given that he had talked about his experiences with you?
A: One-third was stuff I knew. Two-thirds were surprises. For example, I didn’t realize the extent to which he believed he was resisting. He had the attitude of “resist” the whole time. It was very useful for me to understand.
My father and his friend did a kind of dry run of hiding—they didn’t know how to hide, and they decided to hide in a Jewish psychiatric hospital. I didn’t know that. I’ve spent various time periods in Holland, and I visited that hospital.
Q: What impact did it have on you as a child to hear your father’s memories of the Holocaust?
A: I have a sister who is three years younger, and she hated it. My father became a rabbi. He officiated at her wedding, and she was so afraid he’d talk about the Holocaust. My brother identified with my father.
I found it very interesting. When I was a little girl, I had some fears that might have come from his stories—that policemen would come and take me away. When I was in first grade, I believed there was a room in the building called the Punishment Room, and children who misbehaved were taken there.
I went to Michigan in 1972—I was born in 1946—and that was the first time I heard the Holocaust talked about [outside the home]. I felt I was getting a very unusual home education. Even in Hebrew school, I don’t remember any discussion of the Holocaust.
Q: Many second-generation writers have told me their parents didn’t talk about their experiences in the Holocaust, unlike your father.
A: That was another motive for me. If one survivor reads it, or a second-generation person reads it and asks questions, I would be so happy.
It could have been the shame that if you survived, you let somebody else down. But my father came out of it a very active and proud person. The Holocaust needed to be talked about.
Q: What impact did it have on you to write the book?
A: I found that I’m not finished. I’m now writing a book about my mother. They were together from age 16 to age 92; her experiences were the same in some ways but different. I’m interested in gender differences. My mother became a courier [in the war]. My father didn’t leave the house—he was circumcised.
They were both Zionists as teenagers. My mother was completely taken with it—she was always sorry not to make aliyah. My father didn’t feel that way. He felt some things were wrong with the Zionism of the time…They never moved to Israel, but they went there a lot.
Q: Did your mother tell stories about the Holocaust?
A: No. My mother adored her parents, yet she never had pictures of them in the house. She couldn’t bear to think of what had happened to them. My father had a picture of his mother—he wanted to remember her.
She did talk about the good people, the Righteous Gentiles. But she didn’t talk about the bad things, or she would talk about them briefly. My mother’s mother was killed—she never knew if it was on the train to Auschwitz or in Auschwitz. She was always torn by that.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book, especially given the increased antisemitism in the world today?
A: In a sense antisemitism is worse today. There are no killing camps for Jews, but it’s worldwide. The way the intifada is globalized, there’s no place to go.
The takeaways are, first, when you’re oppressed, you should find a way to resist. My father was called to do something by the Nazi government in Holland. He ripped [the order] up and sent it back. If we obey, there’s no way things will get better.
Second, I asked my father what he wanted me to remember about the Holocaust—he knew I was writing this book. He said, there are some good people in this world. It was the opposite of what Anne Frank said, there’s some good in everybody. That is not true.
When he said there are some good people in this world, he was implying that if you need them, you can go look for them, and be one of them yourself. Their relationship with the people in Holland who saved them—they were friends until they all died at the same time.
Also, Jews were resisting all along. They didn’t go like sheep to the slaughter. They were always trying to find a way out. It’s a wonderful story to know—I don’t think a lot of Jews think of the Holocaust that way.
I’m in favor of roots trips—go before it becomes impossible.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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