Pauline Steinhorn is the author of the new book Dreaming of the River: A Mother and Daughter's Fight for Survival During the Holocaust. The book focuses on her mother and grandmother. She is also a filmmaker, and she lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Q: Why did you decide to
write Dreaming of the River?
A: When I was a teenager, my
mother, Hajuta (that’s her Polish name), became a Holocaust educator. She talked
about her happy life before the war, and her years in slave labor and concentration
camps, beginning when she was 13, through her liberation from Bergen-Belsen at
16.
She never forgot the words of
a man who spoke to her in the Sick Barrack. Most of those there had high fevers
and hallucinations, common symptoms of the Typhus epidemic raging through the
camp.
Hajuta heard him chanting the
Shema, the daily Jewish prayer praising one God. He was a member of Parliament
and a frequent dinner guest in her home. He looked at her and said, “Hajuta, you’re
young and healthy and will survive. You must tell the world what happened
here.”
She didn’t believe she would
survive, but she thought of him many years later, along with the many kind
people who saved her life in the camps, most of whom did not survive. She
didn’t want them to be forgotten.
In 1945, in the displaced
persons camp, Hajuta was encouraged to write about her wartime experiences because
“no one would ever believe it happened.” For years, she edited those journals,
adding her research. Near the end of her life, she said her only regret was not
completing her memoir. I promised to finish it for her.
Q: How was the book’s title
chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: My mother’s family, the
Feldmans, lived in Skarzysko, Poland, along the River Kamienna. My mother and
grandmother fondly remember playing, singing, and celebrating with family along
the riverbank.
Two years after the German
occupation, the family was forced into a Jewish ghetto, a cluster of apartment
buildings far from the river. Hajuta dreamed of returning to her childhood
home. The river became a symbol of her hope that one day she would return home
and be reunited with her family.
There was another reason the
river was important to Hajuta. My grandparents worked as slave laborers 12 to
14 hours a day, always returning home.
Hajuta longed to walk through
the forest and see the river. She believed that working in the gardens of the
nearby Nazi munitions factory, where her mother slaved away, would be worth it
just to see the river. She regularly pleaded with her parents to let her go in
her mother’s place. They always said no.
When Hajuta’s youngest sister,
Eva, came home in tears, inconsolable, after hearing older boys say the Nazis
planned to kill all children under 10, my mom, then 13, once again pleaded to
go in her mother’s place. Her parents agreed. At the end of an exhausting day, Hajuta
and the other women were shown to newly created barracks and told they weren’t
going home.
A few months later, ghetto
residents who couldn’t work and those under 16 were sent to the death camp
Treblinka. At 13, Hajuta would have been in a cattle car bound for Treblinka. Dreaming
of the river and being confined to the slave labor camp saved her life.
Q: How did you research the
book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: I conducted research at
the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and online through Yad Vashem, the
Arolsen Archives, and other sources. I read books and watched video testimony
from family members who lived in the ghetto and in the camps, as well as from
others.
The Germans kept detailed
records, including the dates and locations of prisoners' incarceration. I
researched every date, place, and person mentioned in the book and added
details not found in the journals.
It was a surprise to read
about some people in the book. There was a doctor, Dr. Ada Bimko, whom my
grandmother, Bronia, worked with. Dr. Bimko, aka Dr. Hadassah Bimko Rosensaft,
saved over 140 children in Bergen-Belsen and was one of the founders of the
Holocaust Museum.
Her son, Menachem, a human
rights lawyer and a significant founder of the Children of Survivors movement,
wrote the Introduction to Dreaming of the River.
My mother did enormous
research. I filled 12 boxes with my mother’s papers. Since I had typed much of
her memoir, I initially pulled out the latest version and started from there.
The biggest surprise came
about two years after my mother died when I found my grandmother’s journals,
translated from Yiddish. Bronia never spoke about the war, and she was no
longer alive to ask questions.
Q: What do you hope readers
take away from this book?
A: The Holocaust warns us of
the dangers of hatred, prejudice, and apathy. It also reminds us how fragile
democracy is and how easily government and society can turn against minority
groups.
By sharing stories of
Holocaust survivors, we become aware not only of the victims' struggle but also
of the strength of the human spirit. I hope it inspires people to be kinder,
speak up when they see hatred and prejudice, and fight against authoritarianism
and fascism.
Q: What are you working on
now?
A: I’m carrying on my
mother’s legacy by becoming a Holocaust educator. I speak at schools,
synagogues, and community centers, and, most recently, on radio shows,
podcasts, and in book groups.
I’ve returned to writing
essays. The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed that included a story from
this book. I wrote an essay for Moment magazine about eating a cake in Florence
that reminded me of my great-aunt’s orange cake.
To balance the sadness I felt
in writing about my family, I started painting. I’m now exhibiting my paintings
in group shows in the D.C. area.
Q: Anything else we should
know?
A: Friendship played a
crucial role in the camps. In the barracks, the women called each other shvesters,
meaning sister. They cared for one another and did their best to keep their
spirits up. They told stories about their families, shared recipes, recited
poetry, and sang. When my mother was sick, they half-carried her to work and
did her work for her. I was impressed by the courage, resilience, and
compassion of these women.
Bronia developed alliances
with German and Ukrainian guards who looked the other way when she lied about
the seriousness of her patients’ illnesses.
Holocaust survivor Viktor
Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, wrote about the importance of
preserving one’s humanity and finding purpose even in the worst circumstances,
including Auschwitz.
Bronia found her calling as a
nurse. She was determined to stay alive to save others and her oldest daughter.
In the slave labor camps, she convinced a Polish supervisor and the town’s
pharmacist to smuggle medical supplies into the camp.
At night, prisoners with
sprained ankles or infections from handling munitions without safety gloves
lined up outside her barrack for treatment. These inmates would have been
killed if they couldn’t work. She would have been killed if she had been discovered.
Bronia saved many lives. She’s the hero of this story.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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