How my father escaped from Nazi-occupied Poland, and how I retraced his path through Russia, Uzbekistan, and Iran.
Chapter Excerpt Up until the last months of 1942 there were also in Ostrów “Arbeitsjuden” (working Jews), people sent to Ostrów from nearby labor camps and perhaps even a few locals with special permits to work. In Archiwum Miasta Stołecznego Warszawy some days later I construct the history of the last of them — 89 “working Jews” who had been sent from Wengrow to Ostrów – … Read More
From the diary of Emil Landau Here Emil, age 15, records his arrival in Pahlavi, northern Iran, in August 1942: In forty plus degrees heat [over 100 degrees Fahrenheit], the first group leaves the ship’s dock, and after a half an hour sail gets to the small port of Pelhavi. Difficult to transmit in writing the first impression. Each one feels as if he is … Read More
Anna, a ninety-year old Polish-Jewish woman I interviewed in Samarqand, was fifteen when she arrived in Uzbekistan in 1941. When I asked her why she did not try to evacuate to Iran with the Tehran Children, she said that she had come to Uzbekistan alone and did not want to wander in the world any longer. Anna’s mother died in Siberia. Her younger sister died in … Read More