2001-07-06 Hagstrom |
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By
Donald H. Harrison
San Diego, Ca (special) -- Suzan Hagstrom had difficulty saying exactly what motivated her, an Episcopalian of Swedish and British ancestry, to become so involved in researching the Holocaust and eventually writing a book called Sara's Children. Perhaps, it was because of her Alhambra High School history teacher in Martinez, California, Hagstrom speculated during an interview last week at the convention of the Association of Jewish Librarians at the La Jolla Marriott. About 30 years ago, Joe Kokaisl made her "very aware of World War II
and how it wasn't a situation like Hogan's Heroes on television," the author
told me. "He put quite a bit of emphasis on the Holocaust and how nearly successful Hitler was not only in winning the war, but in killing the
entire Jewish population of Europe. The way he taught that, it left a deep
Years after high school, while working as a financial writer for the Orlando Sentinel, Hagstrom had attended some lectures on her own time
at Orlando's Holocaust
Center. Although the center had been open by that time for four years, no one had done a feature-length story about it
for
In the course of researching the story for the Aug. 12, 1990 edition
, she met Helen Greenspun, a Survivor who told her of growing up with anti- Semitism in Poland, how life got worse after the German invasions,
how the family was put on trains to the camps, their lives in the camps,
and
What made Greenspun's story nearly unique was that she was one of five siblings—four sisters and one brother—who came out of the war alive. It was far more commonplace for Survivors to have lost the majority of their siblings to Hitler's killing machine. Hagstrom subsequently decided to interview all five siblings—the children of Sara Garfinkel—and became increasingly absorbed by the events of the Holocaust as they affected the Garfinkel family. "Part of my motivation in telling their saga was to show that some non- Jews view the Shoah as important," Hagstrom reflected in an e-mail
to me after the interview. "Years ago, I even thought that if any deniers
of the Holocaust were to challenge that event or the Garfinkels' testimony,
Two sisters and one brother were sent to work in a camp in Skarzysko-
Kamienna, Poland, which manufactured ammunition for the nazi Army. Two other sisters were sent to a similar installation in Kielce.
Near the end of the war, all five were miraculously reunited in a third camp
in
Why did five Garfinkels survive, while so many other entire families
were
Often when one reads about the Holocaust, one reads of this or that
"Of the five siblings, some of them talk about how they wanted to die,
but
The author said if she had one preconception about the Holocaust it
was
Hagstrom was surprised that through the Garfinkels' lenses, some of
the
The author said from her own perspective, the foreman didn't merit being
On a personal level, writing the book "made me realize that even though
I
Another effect: When she goes to the store to buy something, "instead
of
Writing Sara's Children ' made me "more aware of people as individuals,"
Perhaps we all have a high school teacher in Martinez to thank for that. |