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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host,
Speaker 2: Melanie Young, and I am so glad you're joining me today.
Speaker 2: It's June one, Rabbit Rabbit two. I live on the
Speaker 2: Women for Women Network, and you, if you're joining me
Speaker 2: for the first time, welcome, and if you're coming back,
Speaker 2: you are in for an amazing show. All my listeners,
Speaker 2: I can't even begin to tell you how excited and
Speaker 2: I am to have these two guests for myriad reasons.
Speaker 2: The show will be available permanently on iHeart and about
Speaker 2: thirty five other podcast platforms. I encourage you to share
Speaker 2: it because it is going to be inspirational and I'm
Speaker 2: going to set it up. I have two guests. They're
Speaker 2: calling from the West Coast, and the inspiration is to
Speaker 2: having them join me. Is based on an amazing memoir
Speaker 2: called Bending Toward the Sun, a mother and daughter memoir,
Speaker 2: which is also now available on Amazon's Audible. This is
Speaker 2: this is how I set it up. When I talk
Speaker 2: to people, imagine if On Fronk and her family who
Speaker 2: lived in sequestered in an attic during World War II,
Speaker 2: survived and came to America and had amazing and rich
Speaker 2: lives and beautiful families. That is, as I read Bending
Speaker 2: Toward the Sun, this all I could think of. Aut
Speaker 2: is the story that could have happened, and it happened.
Speaker 2: It's an amazing story of survival, family, faith, and motherhood.
Speaker 2: I'm going to set it up this way, and then
Speaker 2: I'm going to bring on my guests. It is the
Speaker 2: mother and daughter So Rita Lurie was five years old
Speaker 2: when she and her family fled their home in Poland
Speaker 2: to hide from the Nazis during World War II. From
Speaker 2: the summer of nineteen forty two to nineteen forty four,
Speaker 2: she and fourteen members of her family shared a nearly
Speaker 2: silent existence in a cramped, dark attic, subsisting on scraps
Speaker 2: of food and negotiating with the people who own the
Speaker 2: house to keep them safe. Through this long period of time,
Speaker 2: Rita watched helplessly as a child as her younger brother
Speaker 2: and then her mother died by her side. Motherless and stateless,
Speaker 2: Reader and her surviving family members spent the next five
Speaker 2: years wandering throughout Europe waiting for a country to accept them.
Speaker 2: I just want you to put that into context into
Speaker 2: what's going on these days in the Ukraine. Decades later,
Speaker 2: mother is the matriarch of an amazing family in California,
Speaker 2: and she became a wife, a mother, and a businesswoman.
Speaker 2: And she is obviously a big important speaker as a
Speaker 2: Holocaust survivor, which amazing is in itself because there really
Speaker 2: aren't a lot of Holocaust survivors. She speaks to groups
Speaker 2: all the time because unfortunately there are people who still
Speaker 2: don't believe it happened, which just never will I will
Speaker 2: never understand. Joining her is her daughter, Leslie Gilbert Lurie,
Speaker 2: who is a lawyer, author, philanthropist, former television creative executive
Speaker 2: and community leader, and a member of the International Board
Speaker 2: of Directors of Human Rights Watch in the Alliance for
Speaker 2: Children's Rights. Leslie and her sister went back to Poland
Speaker 2: to see where her mother lived and where the family
Speaker 2: me hid all that time nearly two years. So I
Speaker 2: am going to introduce them. I've set this up. I'm
Speaker 2: going to bring them on and welcome them, and then
Speaker 2: we will start the discussion. So Rita Lurie and Leslie
Speaker 2: Gilbert Lurie, welcome to Fearless Fabulous.
Speaker 3: You thank thank you.
Speaker 4: So I.
Speaker 2: Gotta tell you I read the book and NonStop. I
Speaker 2: am Jewish. My family came over to the United States
Speaker 2: in the eighteen nineties. But Rita looks like my aunt
Speaker 2: Rachel and told him for the show. He still has
Speaker 2: a beautiful accent. My mother, who is not well, I
Speaker 2: gave she likes to read. I gave her the book
Speaker 2: and she did not leave the chair. She read it
Speaker 2: in one sitting. It was incredible, So you know, it
Speaker 2: really helped her through what she's going through, which is
Speaker 2: a difficult time. So Rita, I set this up. But
Speaker 2: you know in your words, I'm you know you were
Speaker 2: hiding with your family in an hour for two almost
Speaker 2: two years at five how vividal you know what was
Speaker 2: you know, how vivid are those memories today in your life?
Speaker 2: And which ones in particular?
Speaker 3: Very visit ah, just remembering everybody being in pain for
Speaker 3: one reason or another, being hungry, being afraid that any
Speaker 3: minute we might be caught. It was a terrible existence.
Speaker 3: And then my course, I loved my mother and my brother,
Speaker 3: and that was just devastating.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine at five, Yes.
Speaker 3: Even then it was devastating.
Speaker 2: Yes, you're right. So the book, just so for my listeners,
Speaker 2: is set up in voices. So the first part of
Speaker 2: the book is your voice, and then last and then
Speaker 2: yours together. And you bring in Leslie's daughter. You know,
Speaker 2: you had a sister, Rita who and you and you
Speaker 2: were your kids and you're trying to play, and what happened?
Speaker 2: They shushed you?
Speaker 3: Right, we didn't try to play. We couldn't even try
Speaker 3: to play. We couldn't even try to talk. We had
Speaker 3: to be quiet, We couldn't talk.
Speaker 2: So how did you pass the time?
Speaker 5: I now, maybe maybe you could say what happened when
Speaker 5: you did try to talk?
Speaker 2: Ye's exactly.
Speaker 3: I got a pillow put over my mouth if I
Speaker 3: tried to talk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I I that was very when I read
Speaker 2: that I just gassed because I can't imagine. You know,
Speaker 2: your family bartered all their clothing and jewelry to be
Speaker 2: kept hidden because the you know, I think what my
Speaker 2: listeners need to understand and explain, And Leslie, maybe you
Speaker 2: can bring this in. Is it at that time in
Speaker 2: Poland the families who were not Jewish, who held hid Jews,
Speaker 2: they would be executed, correct?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, the punishment for helping a Jewish person was death.
Speaker 3: So it was a huge risk.
Speaker 2: And and it was an elderly couple and you could
Speaker 2: hear them downstairs rita arguing about whether to let to
Speaker 2: kick you all out right right right?
Speaker 3: I mean it was great. I mean that family was
Speaker 3: helped by my grandfather before the war. That's why we
Speaker 3: got help by them.
Speaker 2: You know, what was you know? And then and then
Speaker 2: the war ended? And what was it like being released?
Speaker 2: I mean into into being sunshine? I mean there was
Speaker 2: no you were in a k attic five foot high ceilings.
Speaker 2: What was it like when you were released?
Speaker 3: It was scary. It was scary because we've sensed the
Speaker 3: fear of the of my father because it was still
Speaker 3: possible that somebody would would kill us. We weren't sure.
Speaker 3: As we were walking to find our house, we walked
Speaker 3: a long way and I patidly walked. I got carried
Speaker 3: part of the way. It was it just it was,
Speaker 3: it was all painful. Everything was just very scary and painful.
Speaker 2: What I didn't understand and learned because I've been really
Speaker 2: diving into this period for a while to learn more
Speaker 2: about vis if everybody's saying that we're facing potentially in
Speaker 2: another World war. So I'm obviously very concerned. I didn't
Speaker 2: realize that after the war the Polish resented the Jews
Speaker 2: because it because the I guess their situation was so
Speaker 2: fragile afterward, right, and so there was a risk. There
Speaker 2: was a risk still because of that, Yes.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, was.
Speaker 5: I just there was a lot of anti Semitism in
Speaker 5: Poland before the war too, and so but but then,
Speaker 5: you know, prejudice gets tightened when people are most insecure
Speaker 5: financially in any way. I mean, prejudice is about one
Speaker 5: group trying to feel better about themselves by belittling another group, right,
Speaker 5: I mean, there there's prejudices, you know, just sort of
Speaker 5: part of the human condition, and anti Semitism was fairly
Speaker 5: prevalent in Poland, so it's not necessary. And then the
Speaker 5: war probably tightened that in a lot of ways because
Speaker 5: Germany invaded Poland and you know, their food, the Polish
Speaker 5: people's food was rationed also, and you know, they were
Speaker 5: compromised in a lot of ways. But it's it's not
Speaker 5: clear that the anti Semitism was worse after the war
Speaker 5: than before the war. You would just think maybe it
Speaker 5: would have been better, and that wasn't the case either.
Speaker 2: What's amazing is that, you know, Leslie, how so so Rita,
Speaker 2: you your family kind of was you know, we're going
Speaker 2: from encampment and encampment to encampment for refugees. You lived
Speaker 2: in Italy for a while, which seemed a positive experience,
Speaker 2: but you were also hospitalized for a while because you
Speaker 2: had severe illness from being a questioned from no son.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's amazing that you're you're a healthy, physically healthy woman,
Speaker 2: you know in the you know, uh and and we're
Speaker 2: able to have children, et cetera. Now throughout this your
Speaker 2: father remarried, so he remarried a woman that who lost
Speaker 2: her family at Auschwitz and survived. And I think, what, really,
Speaker 2: I'm a cancer survivor, so I get surviving, but this
Speaker 2: is a different kind of cancer because this is a
Speaker 2: whole you know, I can't this is there's so I
Speaker 2: understand fearing your life, but this is your head extended
Speaker 2: for me those two years of fear. But your stepmother
Speaker 2: seemed very angry about what happened and had it was
Speaker 2: a It was a difficult relationship for you, and I
Speaker 2: think still and I you know was was through the book.
Speaker 2: How did you know? How did you handle that? You
Speaker 2: and your sister, because your sister is very close, handle
Speaker 2: that when your father remarried. Knowing the loss of your
Speaker 2: mother was such a overwhelming experience.
Speaker 3: My sister was not as uh uh, how would I
Speaker 3: say it, Not as afraid of her I should I
Speaker 3: should say, or not as in impatience, but as I
Speaker 3: was because I was not well, So I wasn't treated
Speaker 3: that was she. She was kind of not treating me well.
Speaker 3: And I was very sad, openly sad. Yeah, more more
Speaker 3: than my sister was.
Speaker 2: It's a very prolonged period of sad. This and I'm
Speaker 2: really sorry that you had to go through that because
Speaker 2: you're you know, freedom after being an antic and then
Speaker 2: pasted in another type of uncomfortable you know, hospital, and
Speaker 2: it just it was a long period. What's amazing is
Speaker 2: that you and your family came to America, established yourself,
Speaker 2: and you feund love and you went you you went
Speaker 2: to school, you you repatriated here and you became a mother,
Speaker 2: and you said you wanted to be the best mother ever.
Speaker 2: Talk to me about that, because I think, you know,
Speaker 2: I was very moved by that, as you know, in
Speaker 2: particularly these days where women are you know, multitasking like
Speaker 2: you know, have to go get Chris. The think you
Speaker 2: dedicated yourself to being a mother. What is it that
Speaker 2: you wanted to give.
Speaker 3: I don't remember saying I remember feeling it, but saying it.
Speaker 2: Oh, it was clear you wanted to be a very
Speaker 2: good mother, and you were. But you also had a career.
Speaker 3: Well, I did many things. Actually I was a business woman.
Speaker 3: I I took class and at school. I uh, I
Speaker 3: and I had children, you know, so I was I was,
Speaker 3: I was pretty busy.
Speaker 2: You're very busy. You're very busy. I was, you were traveling.
Speaker 2: I was impressed. And Leslie growing up, you and your sister,
Speaker 2: what did you know about your mother's past? What I mean,
Speaker 2: how did you how did it become more aware? To
Speaker 2: you excuse me.
Speaker 5: I think little by little, I think I felt that
Speaker 5: I always knew that there was something different.
Speaker 4: About my mom, something maybe a most sort of sad
Speaker 4: about her past that I just almost intuited.
Speaker 5: And I think somewhere along the way, I knew that
Speaker 5: her mother had died, but I did not know very
Speaker 5: much about the Holocaust. My cousins from New York, the
Speaker 5: children of the people my mom hid in the attic
Speaker 5: with her sister, her brother, and her parents, and then cousins,
Speaker 5: three cousins who had lived down the street from her,
Speaker 5: and those cousins and their children came to visit us
Speaker 5: in Los Angeles when I was seven years old, and
Speaker 5: I think maybe that was the first time I actually
Speaker 5: heard people talk about the Holocaust. My mom and her
Speaker 5: sister and the three cousins all sat in the family room,
Speaker 5: and I'm sure in one way or another we caught
Speaker 5: bits and pieces of it, but really, until I was
Speaker 5: in my late TEA mean, I think what I really
Speaker 5: knew is that my mother's mother had died, and that
Speaker 5: seemed inconceivable to me because I was so attached to
Speaker 5: my mother, and I would ask her questions about the
Speaker 5: attict and what she ate in the attic and if
Speaker 5: her mother shared food with her.
Speaker 3: I was very I think that was sort of my
Speaker 3: view of the war as a child.
Speaker 2: Very interesting because you know, I didn't know, you know,
Speaker 2: I honestly, I'll be honest with you, Rita, You're the
Speaker 2: first person I've ever spoken to this Holocaust survivor. So
Speaker 2: I'm just in my mind is going and I'm just amazed.
Speaker 2: You know, I grew up I mean, I'm Jewish. I
Speaker 2: grew up hearing about it, right, I grew up with
Speaker 2: a family that feared that it could happen again. Anti Semitism,
Speaker 2: we know is still extremely prevalent, which is very upsetting.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, what do you say to people who, I mean,
Speaker 2: who deny there's even a Holocaust?
Speaker 3: Well, I think go ahead. I'm sorry, mom, I don't
Speaker 3: be've acknowledged them. I mean, because it's stupid. Anybody who
Speaker 3: devised to look closes really living in this world.
Speaker 5: Also really Holocaust deniers. It's just a form of hate speech.
Speaker 5: There's evidence all around that the Holocaust existed. It's as
Speaker 5: documented as World War One or World War two, So
Speaker 5: to say it didn't exist it is really just a
Speaker 5: provocative form of hate speech, but it was one of
Speaker 5: my mother's reasons for wanting to write this book. I
Speaker 5: was at her house one morning and she was frustrated,
Speaker 5: and I asked her what was wrong, and she told
Speaker 5: me she really wanted to tell this story, that she
Speaker 5: couldn't find the right person to write it with her.
Speaker 5: And I asked why she wanted to tell it, And
Speaker 5: first of all, she you know, reiterated to me that
Speaker 5: she had been speaking about her story and churches and
Speaker 5: synagogues and schools and students were so interested in this,
Speaker 5: and she wanted to tell her story to a broader group.
Speaker 5: But she also talked about the Holocaust deniers she had
Speaker 5: seen on the news lately, and she did want to
Speaker 5: provide even more testimony of what took place. And finally,
Speaker 5: she said to me she wanted to show that people
Speaker 5: could go through the worst experiences imaginable and not only survive,
Speaker 5: but survived well, like go on to have good things
Speaker 5: happen in their lives. And I was sort of really
Speaker 5: moved that day, and I said, well, maybe I could
Speaker 5: help you, and I always think she didn't hear anything.
Speaker 3: Maybe, so she said, well, when are we going to
Speaker 3: start writing this?
Speaker 5: And That's how we started our book, but it was
Speaker 5: partly inspired by hearing more and more Holocaust deniers.
Speaker 2: So what was it like to write the book with
Speaker 2: your mother? And was a cathartic? Was it challenging? And
Speaker 2: how long was the process?
Speaker 5: It was a long process. It was a great experience.
Speaker 5: I had a lot of concern.
Speaker 3: About going into this.
Speaker 5: I didn't want to promise something I couldn't deliver. I
Speaker 5: had never I had never written a book.
Speaker 3: I had been an executive at.
Speaker 5: NBC and written some television scripts and I liked to write,
Speaker 5: but I had never even thought about writing a memoir.
Speaker 5: And beyond that, when I told people that I had
Speaker 5: decided to write a Holocaust story, most people said to me, ough,
Speaker 5: not another Holocaust story.
Speaker 3: No, really, what a great idea.
Speaker 5: But I knew from my television experience that we had
Speaker 5: every First of all, I knew no one ever knows
Speaker 5: what's going on, be good or not. You just have
Speaker 5: to believe in your ideas. And second, I knew that
Speaker 5: my mom was a really interesting character and that her
Speaker 5: story had a.
Speaker 3: Lot of drama.
Speaker 5: And we found a really different way to tell the
Speaker 5: story by putting me into it and my daughter putting
Speaker 5: three generations into a Holocaust story.
Speaker 3: So I just had a gut sense that this could
Speaker 3: be successful.
Speaker 5: But you know, and I say this because I want
Speaker 5: aspiring writers to be able to hold onto their conviction
Speaker 5: of what a good story is, because you know, everyone
Speaker 5: said it wouldn't work until it did, and then people
Speaker 5: loved it. But along the way I really enjoyed working
Speaker 5: with my mom. I thought maybe I wouldn't. You never
Speaker 5: know what it's like to get into a project like
Speaker 5: this whistline you love so much and are so close
Speaker 5: to but they're still your mom. But my mom brought
Speaker 5: her her most professional self to this. She showed up
Speaker 5: at my house every day. We spent probably a year
Speaker 5: and a half telling me her story, and I was
Speaker 5: so impressed by how well she remembered so much.
Speaker 3: But because she had been.
Speaker 5: So young, I knew we needed other people brought into
Speaker 5: the story. So we made a point of talking to
Speaker 5: her sister, her three cousins, her two uncles who hid
Speaker 5: in the attic with her, and I had also been
Speaker 5: back to Poland years earlier, so I was able to
Speaker 5: incorporate what the woman who hid my mother had told us.
Speaker 5: So we had a lot of documentation. But it took
Speaker 5: probably I would say five or six years to write
Speaker 5: it because I was still working full time at the
Speaker 5: same time, and then a couple of years. Then we
Speaker 5: had to find an agent, and then Harper Collins bought it,
Speaker 5: but then they had an editor, and it took eight
Speaker 5: years at least from the time we started till the
Speaker 5: time it was published.
Speaker 2: But what a story. And you know what amazed me.
Speaker 2: There are a couple of things that amazed but obviously
Speaker 2: that the story of that, but the fact that fifteen
Speaker 2: people were hidden in an attic, and a very small fifteen.
Speaker 2: There was like no space. And those who did leave
Speaker 2: and escape and repatriate are did very well. And I
Speaker 2: think most are still and I mean you may have
Speaker 2: passed some, but many many are still alive.
Speaker 5: Right, Yes, My mom, her sister, and the three cousins
Speaker 5: are all still alive.
Speaker 2: Just amazing.
Speaker 5: A couple of our uncles died very recently, once in
Speaker 5: his nineties, so yes, I mean, miraculously they survived and
Speaker 5: survived well. But and I was really intrigued when you
Speaker 5: started and said that, you know, imagine Anne Frank, because
Speaker 5: that was sort of my working idea when we started
Speaker 5: this is we all think if only Anne Frank had survived,
Speaker 5: like you know, everyone would have lived happily ever after
Speaker 5: the minute.
Speaker 3: The war was over.
Speaker 5: And one of the reasons we wanted to tell this
Speaker 5: story is because to show that when children are impacted
Speaker 5: by war and trauma, that that stays with them their
Speaker 5: whole lives too. It's not exactly like a Disney film
Speaker 5: where you know, when the prince comes along, everything works
Speaker 5: out well. Like my mother's life and that of her
Speaker 5: sister and her cousins has been, you know, much more
Speaker 5: of a struggle because of what they encountered as children,
Speaker 5: and you know that impacted their children and grandchildren also.
Speaker 2: I was actually very impressed in terms of admiration that
Speaker 2: you were so open Rita and Leslie about Rita's bounce
Speaker 2: of depression. I've interviewed a lot of women on this
Speaker 2: show who've gone through horrific trauma as children. I've done
Speaker 2: a lot of shows on that and have come out
Speaker 2: on as adults as amazing women doing incredible things, many
Speaker 2: or business owners, everything, but they always carry inside of
Speaker 2: them something that happens. It will always stay with them.
Speaker 2: And you're very open about having depression recurring depression and
Speaker 2: debilitating for which I admire because a lot of people
Speaker 2: hide that. And I think it's good to be open
Speaker 2: because reassuring that this is something that does happen after trauma, right.
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely absolutely, And you know, and one of the
Speaker 5: things that we always really want to talk about is,
Speaker 5: you know, it's been amazing sharing one story, how many
Speaker 5: stories have come back to us of young people today
Speaker 5: and what they are going through and their their own traumas,
Speaker 5: and to get people to talk about it, but also
Speaker 5: to really encourage mental health services being available to young
Speaker 5: people experiencing trauma, because you know, we believe that had
Speaker 5: that been available to my mom earlier, it would have
Speaker 5: really helped with her recovery exactly.
Speaker 2: And I kept as I read the book, I kept
Speaker 2: thinking about what's going on in the Ukraine right now,
Speaker 2: and I think about those children, yes so, and I
Speaker 2: think about the fear and how these children will never
Speaker 2: you know, and they're going to be, you know, going
Speaker 2: from a camp much like you did. They've been going
Speaker 2: to they've been assigned Italy and Poland. And as I
Speaker 2: read your book, I thought about that because you've got rius.
Speaker 2: I was amazed how many times you had to move
Speaker 2: around after release. I don't understand the process of how why,
Speaker 2: I really don't, but it seemed like a really long time.
Speaker 2: It seemed like Italy was the longest period of time
Speaker 2: you were anywhere.
Speaker 5: Yes, it took him five years to moving from displaced
Speaker 5: persons camp to displaced persons camp, mostly in Italy. But
Speaker 5: the reason is they had to wait for.
Speaker 3: Some country to take them in. They weren't really.
Speaker 5: Citizens of any country, and ultimately a distant relative in
Speaker 5: the United States sponsored my mother's family to come to
Speaker 5: the United States. But she was twelve years old and
Speaker 5: she had never been to school because the war had
Speaker 5: started just when she turned five. They went into hiding,
Speaker 5: so she didn't speak a word of English, and she
Speaker 5: started school for the first time in her life at
Speaker 5: twelve years old, in the seventh grade in New York.
Speaker 2: Well, but you know, it is a.
Speaker 5: Reminder, you know of what the children in Ukraine are
Speaker 5: going through right now, but also you know, in Afghanistan
Speaker 5: experience so many other places in the world because you know,
Speaker 5: the Ukraine is just closer to you know, right where
Speaker 5: my mother was born, but all those children are experiencing
Speaker 5: so much of the same thing from you know so
Speaker 5: many different places in the world right now.
Speaker 2: It's it just never ends. You know what. We can't
Speaker 2: seem to learn from our lessons of history.
Speaker 5: Can we? No?
Speaker 2: No, no, it's so discouraging, it really is. And I
Speaker 2: don't understand. You know, we're supposed to be humankind, but
Speaker 2: we're fairly inhuman often and a lot of it. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, I was going to say that children ultimately become
Speaker 5: the most vulnerable because they're the least able to advocate
Speaker 5: for themselves. They obviously have the least responsibility for their
Speaker 5: country being involved in a war to begin with, so
Speaker 5: at every level.
Speaker 2: They're the it's all, yeah, and it packs him forever.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about the motherhood theme throughout the book.
Speaker 2: It's very strong, very strong, Rita. You obviously were very
Speaker 2: you loved your mother dearly. Her loss, she basically lost
Speaker 2: the will to live, which is a very sad way
Speaker 2: to die. I've seen it before. My father lost his
Speaker 2: will to live. I'm dealing with a mother now who
Speaker 2: just broke her hip this past weekend, and her will
Speaker 2: is very negative right now, and we're trying to turn
Speaker 2: that around. But you know, when that happens, the mind
Speaker 2: is a powerful thing. And then you had another mother,
Speaker 2: a stepmother who had a whole other personality and was
Speaker 2: difficult and resentful and protective, but resentful. It's difficult. And
Speaker 2: then you became I'm a parent and you're also a grandmother.
Speaker 2: What have you I'd like you to share with both
Speaker 2: of you what you have learned from the experience from
Speaker 2: generation to generation about what you see in each other.
Speaker 2: You know, how does motherhood Where do you see motherhood
Speaker 2: in terms of the lessons learned?
Speaker 3: Are you saying in terms of the lessons learned from
Speaker 3: the Holocaust?
Speaker 2: No, from your own experience of seeing a mother, knowing
Speaker 2: your mother suffered, so survived but still suffers. And you
Speaker 2: have a very tight relationship with your mother, so communication
Speaker 2: is very important. You know, what do you think strengthens
Speaker 2: the mother? You know, we've seen you know there was
Speaker 2: a mother that was a stepmother, that was less of
Speaker 2: a bond. What has strengthened you from mother to daughter
Speaker 2: to granddaughter as the story unfolds as unfolded.
Speaker 3: It's just my my need to love and be loved.
Speaker 2: M hm.
Speaker 3: And and I'm very uh, let's see, how would I say,
Speaker 3: I'm very h oh involved, not involved, but I'm very.
Speaker 3: You're looking for the word in mesh, not a mesh
Speaker 3: that I don't do. I'm a mesh. Do you think
Speaker 3: I'm a mesh? I I'm very. I feel very close
Speaker 3: to my family because they're so important to me because
Speaker 3: I didn't have it when I was young.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm, yeah. I think that is one of the
Speaker 5: things my mom passed down to all of us, is
Speaker 5: how central and important family is. I remember my you know,
Speaker 5: every time we hang up from each other, we all
Speaker 5: say I love you. And I remember my step son
Speaker 5: one time saying to me that he literally was talking
Speaker 5: to an operator and hanging up and he almost started
Speaker 5: to say I love you because he was just so
Speaker 5: used to saying it as he hung.
Speaker 3: Up the phone.
Speaker 5: So I think that that you know, just that closeness
Speaker 5: and that that idea that when you you know that
Speaker 5: in the best of circumstances, you can rely on family members.
Speaker 5: I think in terms of the mother daughter bond, though
Speaker 5: it's a you know, it's a beautiful and complicated bond
Speaker 5: that changes all the time, and you know, and I'm
Speaker 5: learning every day. I learned to be a better daughter,
Speaker 5: and I learned to be a better mother and a
Speaker 5: lot of it in life is just showing up, showing
Speaker 5: up every day, dealing with the guilt. We all feel
Speaker 5: that we're not perfect, that you know, we can't be
Speaker 5: everything that each other wants us to be. But we're
Speaker 5: there and we're trying and we're open, and you know,
Speaker 5: it's I think it's hard. It's hard to be it's
Speaker 5: hard to be a mother, and it's hard to be
Speaker 5: a daughter because you know, our instinct I think as
Speaker 5: strong women is you want to fix everything. You want
Speaker 5: to fix everything. I want to fix everything for my mother.
Speaker 5: I want to fix everything for my daughter.
Speaker 3: And you can't.
Speaker 5: You can't fix your you know, mother's broken bones. You
Speaker 5: can't fix you know, you can't fix your children's broken hearts.
Speaker 5: But you can show up and listen and you know,
Speaker 5: be be the best.
Speaker 4: You can be.
Speaker 3: And I agree, well, me, I worry when they go
Speaker 3: with the trip of very worried of about their safety.
Speaker 3: I always can't wait till they come back so I
Speaker 3: know they're okay.
Speaker 2: Thank god we have means that we have phones in
Speaker 2: facetimes now and the back in the day, I can't
Speaker 2: imagine what it was like. You know, I want to
Speaker 2: talk about a topic I want to talk about forgiveness, Yeah,
Speaker 2: because I think, you know, how do you forgive or
Speaker 2: do you forgive? And I think about Judaism, and you know,
Speaker 2: I'm actually as I'm speaking, I'm looking at a saying
Speaker 2: by Julius Ox. He founded the New York Times and
Speaker 2: he's actually from Chattanooga, where I am. And he talks about,
Speaker 2: you know, God alone by forms and ceremonies, a virtuous
Speaker 2: life in the practice of charity and benevolence is my religion.
Speaker 2: And he talks about giving back and doing good. But
Speaker 2: what about forgiveness? How do you reconcile that based on
Speaker 2: what happened to you Rita and what happened to you
Speaker 2: as you learned it about your mother? How do you
Speaker 2: deal with that learning to you can't forget, but can
Speaker 2: you forgive? Or how do you process it into something
Speaker 2: that's a positive thing? Mom?
Speaker 3: Do you want to answer or give the Holocaust?
Speaker 2: Well no, yea't forgive, but do not forgive. But you
Speaker 2: can never forgive the Holocaust. But there are people who were,
Speaker 2: you know, difficult afterward. I mean I personally felt the
Speaker 2: couple that hols you was they were kind, but they
Speaker 2: were also difficult and she was mad. Wasn't she angry
Speaker 2: when you went back, Leslie?
Speaker 5: We talked about she was not angry when we went back.
Speaker 3: But actually my mother and I went back. This isn't
Speaker 3: even in the book.
Speaker 5: But after our book was published, we just speak in Poland.
Speaker 5: And so my mom came back with me for the
Speaker 5: first time since she was seven years old. And first
Speaker 5: of all, something fascinating happened.
Speaker 3: We got out of our car, my mom.
Speaker 5: And me and my husband and my kids and my
Speaker 5: friend Lynn, and a twelve year old girl was walking
Speaker 5: down the street and immediately walked by us and said,
Speaker 5: I know you. She said in Poland, but she's Polish,
Speaker 5: but she said I know you, and which seemed crazy
Speaker 5: because of course my mom.
Speaker 3: Hadn't been back there since she was seven years old.
Speaker 5: But it turned out her village had just celebrated its
Speaker 5: six hundred year anniversary and in all the celebrations, her
Speaker 5: teacher had noticed that there was no mention of the
Speaker 5: Jewish people who had lived in the village before the war.
Speaker 5: So the teacher asked this twelve year old girl to
Speaker 5: write a book about the Jewish families who had lived
Speaker 5: in the village, and she had just interviewed the town
Speaker 5: historian and all the oldest people in the village, and
Speaker 5: at the center of her report, which had just won
Speaker 5: an award from the mayor, was a picture of my
Speaker 5: mom and me. It made it feel like it was
Speaker 5: a very small world, and you know, in a complicated world.
Speaker 5: But everywhere we've spoken over ten years, which is a
Speaker 5: lot of places, every month, someone asked this exact question.
Speaker 5: They asked my mom if she forgives, if she forgives,
Speaker 5: you know, the people who harmed her family. It's you know,
Speaker 5: it's an important question, and Mom, maybe you can say
Speaker 5: first and then, but you can you can just talk
Speaker 5: about how you feel about you know, about forgiveness.
Speaker 3: Well, defendant, who I'm supposed to forgive for us?
Speaker 5: Do you forgive anyone connected with the Holocaust?
Speaker 3: Connected with the Holocaust?
Speaker 5: No, M yeah, I think that that, you know, and
Speaker 5: I always feel like it's not really my place to forgive,
Speaker 5: but it's you know, and to the extent that forgiveness
Speaker 5: is uh relevant, I you know, I guess I don't
Speaker 5: either forgive anyone who shot people innocent people who shoot
Speaker 5: innocent people. But I would say that the family who
Speaker 5: hid my mother's family, they I think they were appropriately complicated.
Speaker 5: I think they did an amazingly heroic act by taking
Speaker 5: in my mother's family. And when we interviewed Maria Groholski,
Speaker 5: the stopped at Groholski's wife, the woman who was fighting them,
Speaker 5: who she had four young children of her own in
Speaker 5: their home. Every day their life.
Speaker 3: Was at risk. Nazis would come.
Speaker 5: By their home to get provisions all the time, so
Speaker 5: if a child cried in the attic, they would hit
Speaker 5: one of their own children downstairs so that the cries
Speaker 5: downstairs might cover up the cries upstairs. One day, Maria
Speaker 5: Girloski calls. She was peeling potatoes and a neighbor came
Speaker 5: by and said, why do you need all those potatoes?
Speaker 5: And she had to quickly make up a story about
Speaker 5: her forces having teeth problems and needing to boil potatoes
Speaker 5: for them. So, you know, under so much stress, I
Speaker 5: could understand why they would have mixed feelings about my
Speaker 5: mother's family staying there for two years. But they truly
Speaker 5: were heroic.
Speaker 3: But us, to tell you, the reason he took us
Speaker 3: in is because my grandfather and he had a relationship
Speaker 3: of my grandfather that upset a lot of favors for
Speaker 3: him m and took care.
Speaker 5: But Mom, that doesn't compare to hiding a family for
Speaker 5: two years.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, risking your life, risking your family's life.
Speaker 3: Right, he didn't know it's going to be for a
Speaker 3: couple of years, he no, you know, but then there's
Speaker 3: nothing he could do about it.
Speaker 2: You know, I think in forgive that, you know, I
Speaker 2: think about my grandfather. My grandparents never bought German. They
Speaker 2: never would buy anything German, you know. You know that's
Speaker 2: I think where you go with it, you can't forgive.
Speaker 2: But there's the things that linger beyond. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: even you know, there are people who still won't buy
Speaker 2: Japanese you know, things, you know, because a pearl harbor.
Speaker 2: There's it. You know what where you have to draw
Speaker 2: the line, I guess is trying to say this was
Speaker 2: a terrible, horrible, evil thing that happened. But the people
Speaker 2: who are living today who just happened to be Japanese
Speaker 2: or German, you know, it's they're a fate. They didn't
Speaker 2: do it, you know, they're they're different people. They probably
Speaker 2: and I don't even know how the Holocaust is taught
Speaker 2: in Germany. I always wondered how that was because I
Speaker 2: live in the South, and I know, I hate to
Speaker 2: say it, but the war between the States is called
Speaker 2: the War of Northern Aggression. So I always wonder how
Speaker 2: I just can't even imagine. But I would be angry,
Speaker 2: you know, I would be angry if I were a
Speaker 2: young German today and saw how my country treated people.
Speaker 2: And you know, I'm still angry that we interned people
Speaker 2: from how we treated the Japanese. But I me and
Speaker 2: everybody's individual and it's a very complicated world right now
Speaker 2: because I think the world is filled with a lot
Speaker 2: of hate, which I'd hate to see because we need
Speaker 2: to be filled with love. Are you familiar with kavad
Speaker 2: kovo d?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to introduce so John an Israel Pregleman.
Speaker 2: John is from Chanooga and he's a lawyer. He started
Speaker 2: a photography exhibit called Cavad and he travels the country
Speaker 2: doing beautiful portraits of Holocaust survivors ka v o D.
Speaker 2: It's called Cavad Ensuring dignity. A lot of the money.
Speaker 2: He also raises money to help individuals who are living
Speaker 2: in and you know, who are in need. But he
Speaker 2: has a survivor gallery ko v o d is kavad
Speaker 2: Insharing dignity, and I'm going to introduce you because I
Speaker 2: think would be a beautiful portrait they do. This is
Speaker 2: out of their heart, their goodness of their heart. So
Speaker 2: I do that and make sure you have it because
Speaker 2: I think you know, first of all, this book is
Speaker 2: a lesson that I think many should be reading in schools.
Speaker 2: I'm curious why you called it bending towards the Sun.
Speaker 5: Well, when I was interguing my mom for the book
Speaker 5: and we were talking about the times that she was
Speaker 5: the first time she went through a very serious depression
Speaker 5: was when she graduated from high school and she was
Speaker 5: living in Chicago. Her friends were moving on to go
Speaker 5: to college, to get jobs, to get married, and my
Speaker 5: mom just felt sad, horribly sad, and she decided that
Speaker 5: she needed help. Her father said, you're not crazy, you
Speaker 5: don't need to you don't need to go to a psychiatrist,
Speaker 5: but she knew she did, so she found a therapist,
Speaker 5: and little by little she started to feel better.
Speaker 3: She told me that she noticed that flowers again.
Speaker 5: Had colors, that leaves were green. She said, I felt
Speaker 5: myself bending towards the sun, and it seemed like such
Speaker 5: a hopeful expression, such a beautiful way of describing how
Speaker 5: one could feel so devastatingly horrible and then start to
Speaker 5: feel better.
Speaker 3: So we just thought that's a great title for the book.
Speaker 2: I think it's a beautiful title. And also just when
Speaker 2: you know, I remember when there was a little window
Speaker 2: in the attic, a little window in the attic, the
Speaker 2: opportunity to look at the sunlight going out, that it
Speaker 2: was a sign of hope, just to be able to
Speaker 2: see out. Yeah, I saw it that way. I mean
Speaker 2: it's I thought of a sunflower and just opening up.
Speaker 3: We didn't get we couldn't get near the window because
Speaker 3: there was there were just stuff outside. Yeah, all kinds
Speaker 3: of different provisions. You know, they have booth so we
Speaker 3: couldn't get near the window.
Speaker 2: That struck me too, because it reminded me of a
Speaker 2: movie I saw where the mother and her child were
Speaker 2: trapped in a room and there were that light. That
Speaker 2: window was the only thing they could see. I couldn't
Speaker 2: imagine not even being able to look outside. But that
Speaker 2: bending towards the sun is like a sign of you know,
Speaker 2: hope and redemption and also a bit of shedding a
Speaker 2: light on what happens and sharing it because you always
Speaker 2: want to share a light. So there's a lot of
Speaker 2: meaning in it. In the title, I thought it was
Speaker 2: a great title.
Speaker 3: Thank Yeah.
Speaker 5: We think there are a lot of hopeful stories in
Speaker 5: the Holocaust, a lot of important stories, which is why
Speaker 5: you know, we wanted to tell the story. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: for example, one of the things that we noticed is
Speaker 5: the Groholski family did help my mother's family, and because
Speaker 5: of that.
Speaker 3: So many people are alive today.
Speaker 5: And we want, we always want to encourage people to
Speaker 5: be upstanders rather than bystanders. And when we talk about
Speaker 5: our book, we asked people to talk about who were
Speaker 5: the upstanders in the story, who were the people who
Speaker 5: affirmatively did something and really.
Speaker 3: You know, encourage people to do that in the world today.
Speaker 2: I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we did answer the hosted name into the into yet,
Speaker 3: but in Israel for yes, for for helping us, so
Speaker 3: they're they're well known.
Speaker 5: Sasha khok is noted as a righteous gentile for helping
Speaker 5: Jewish people.
Speaker 2: That's very nice. That's very nice. That's very nice. I
Speaker 2: mean what they did really was heroic because they risk
Speaker 2: their lives to save your family's lives.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2: And if people don't take that effort and make that,
Speaker 2: you know, you can't turn the blind eye.
Speaker 5: No, and and thousands and thousands of people survived because
Speaker 5: some people, actually four percent of people in Poland took
Speaker 5: in Jewish people, so you know, there were people who
Speaker 5: were upstanders. And you know, the other kind of corollary
Speaker 5: to that is, no one took a human being in
Speaker 5: and thought they were going to take them in for
Speaker 5: two years. People start out, you know, being heroes. Heroes
Speaker 5: are ordinary people. They're just people like you and me.
Speaker 6: But one day they decide to do something good, like
Speaker 6: maybe hide someone for a night, and then sometimes that
Speaker 6: makes them feel better about themselves and it leads to
Speaker 6: two nights or three nights.
Speaker 3: But it was all before, it was all before my
Speaker 3: grandfather helped him in many ways.
Speaker 2: So one good deed can you know, lead to others,
Speaker 2: you know, never you know, And I think that's really
Speaker 2: really important. Again, I'm looking at this Julius os quote
Speaker 2: and it says, worship God not alone by forms and ceremonies,
Speaker 2: but by a virtuous life, by the practice of charity
Speaker 2: and benevolence. This is my religion. And my mother always
Speaker 2: said she believes in do unto others, not as they
Speaker 2: would do unto you, but just do unto others, don't
Speaker 2: ask anything in return. And I think that's important. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think that's important in faith, doing to others, not
Speaker 2: as they would do unto you, but just do unto others.
Speaker 2: And you know, good will always out live an outlast evil.
Speaker 2: And I think this is a great example because they
Speaker 2: took you in, they risked their lives, you survived, and
Speaker 2: you've come out and had this amazing life here. You
Speaker 2: were accepted the United States, which is great, and your
Speaker 2: family has thrived and and you you're still here to
Speaker 2: tell this amazing story. It's just incredible.
Speaker 5: One other piece of that is that and it ties
Speaker 5: into my mom, you know, who just has repeated that
Speaker 5: her grandfather's family, you know, helped and Roolski. But one lesson,
Speaker 5: actually President Bell Clinton mentioned it initially at a press
Speaker 5: conference where a reporter said, what advice would you give
Speaker 5: my twelve year old son to make the world better?
Speaker 5: And President Clinton said, tell him to get to know
Speaker 5: as many people as he can his age who are
Speaker 5: different from him. And it turned out that even in
Speaker 5: the Holocaust, Jewish people who are more assimilated who knew
Speaker 5: non Jewish people were more likely to be helped.
Speaker 3: And we know.
Speaker 5: Today that when people meet people different from themselves, that's
Speaker 5: what breaks down prejudice. And you know, even in the Holocaust.
Speaker 3: German people would say, oh, yeah, the Jewish.
Speaker 5: People, they're horrible, they're this, they're that, except for the
Speaker 5: one who lives next door to me, like he's a
Speaker 5: good person. And so I think we all have to
Speaker 5: go out of our way a little bit to meet
Speaker 5: people who are, you know, different from ourselves.
Speaker 2: I agree. I think that's really important in and I
Speaker 2: know that's how I was brought up, and it makes
Speaker 2: me a more accepting and curious people and inspires me
Speaker 2: every day. I want to thank both of you for
Speaker 2: joining me today. We've come to the end of the
Speaker 2: show again. We've been speaking with readA Laurie and Leslie
Speaker 2: Gilbert Laurie. I love how you added the name after
Speaker 2: your married name, and it was a beautiful tribute. The
Speaker 2: book again is Bending Towards the Sun, a mother and
Speaker 2: daughter memoir. It came out in two thousand and nine
Speaker 2: by HarperCollins and now has an audible version which is
Speaker 2: narrated by you. Leslie and voice artist. Be out to
Speaker 2: Posniac right, be out to Posniac. So I encourage everybody
Speaker 2: to read it. I also encourage you to give it
Speaker 2: to children of a certain age or young adults to read,
Speaker 2: because I think it's important to continue sharing the message
Speaker 2: that we can't have hate in our world. We have
Speaker 2: to have benevolence and kindness. Thank thank you for joining me,
Speaker 2: and of course I hope you know you share this show.
Speaker 2: And my message to everyone is that despite whatever hardship
Speaker 2: you're going through and hurdles, you have the right and
Speaker 2: the choice to make the decision to say I want
Speaker 2: to live life on my terms and be the change
Speaker 2: you want to be and yourself and the people around
Speaker 2: you and your community. So just remember stay fearless and fabulous.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Tell me again your.
Speaker 2: Name Melanie Young, Melanie, Yes, I am your host, Melanie Young. Fearless, fabulous,
Speaker 2: Melanie Young.
Speaker 5: Okay, thanks so much, Melanie, Thank you my pleasure.
Speaker 3: Bye, mom and daughter, Okay bye.
Speaker 2: You ought to