Q&A with Shirley Russak Wachtel

 

 

 

Shirley Russak Wachtel is the author of the new novel The Baker of Lost Memories. Her other books include the novel A Castle in Brooklyn. She is a professor emerita of English at Middlesex College, and she lives in New Jersey.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Baker of Lost Memories, and how did you create your character Lena?

 

A: Like many children of Holocaust survivors, I am haunted by memories, not my own, but the memories my parents had. What was life like when the Nazis crashed into their lives? How were their lives changed in the ghetto? How were they able to survive the terrible losses and go on to rebuild and live meaningful lives? I wanted to explore these questions in the novel. 

 

While only my mother and two of her brothers survived out of a family of eight children, and only my father out of five siblings survived that terrible time, fortunately, they did not lose any of their own children. However, my uncle and aunt lost two young daughters, but then went on to have a son after the war ended. 

 

With the book, I dig into how the loss of a child affected Anya and Josef; I was especially interested to learn how the stories of a sister she never knew affects Lena. She mourns her and wants to know more but is afraid to ask. Her parents’ history has a profound effect on Lena and determines the course of the book.

 

Q: How did you research the novel, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: My father was a runner in the black market in the Lodz Ghetto. I was excited to learn more about what life was like in this place. From the memory of my father’s stories and research I had done to establish a Holocaust Center at the college where I taught for many years, along with books and online materials, I was able to delve into the subject. 

 

I was particularly surprised by what life was like for the children, that despite all they had known crumbling down all around them, starvation, lack of sanitary facilities, there was some order in their lives with school and friendships.

Q: What do you think the story says about family secrets?

 

A: I firmly believe every family has secrets. Sometimes these secrets are forgotten and do not have any effect on the members of a family.

 

But in my novel, we see how burying the past in silence can have a detrimental effect on our health, both mental and physical. Failing to dredge up those secrets can also affect the next generation in a negative way.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?

 

A: I hope that readers will see the importance of being open about our past and understand how silences can have a jarring effect on others in our family, especially children.

 

Children need to know the truth about their parents’ history, even if it is tragic. But children need validation too; they must be praised for their own accomplishments and grow to see their own worth so that they do not need to look elsewhere for it, as Lena did.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I just completed a manuscript tentatively called The Crying Room. It is about three sisters, triplets, in hiding in a shoemaker’s shop in Vienna during World War II. The book spans 40 years and takes us from Vienna to New York City in the 1970s. Again, we see how their brutal circumstances altered their lives.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I am fascinated by the Holocaust because of my family history. But although the Holocaust comes up in some way in my novels, I do not consider myself a Holocaust writer. I see myself as a writer of family stories and how we are all linked together through family history and that our needs for love and validation are all the same.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Shirley Russak Wachtel.