Read some excerpts from several of our books. Click the links to reveal sample writing and see how we approach our work with compassion and care for our clients’ personal histories.
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My mother said I looked like a little huckleberry, with my color drained and no oxygen. Sick with grief, my father later told me, he held me in his arms and rocked and rocked. Now, my father was never a drinker. There might be a pint in the house, but it was really for the holidays and would have lasted for a year or more.
But that night, my father poured some liquor on a teaspoon and continued to put a little bit and a little bit into my tiny mouth. I would gag and cough, and my father later claimed that my upchucking helped to clear my lungs! That little bit of whisky saved my life! I haven’t told many people that story, but my father always said recounted that story, in a joking way, “Oh yeah, Herb was a drinker at six months!” He feels that he saved my life that night.
My older sister and I loved to sit around and listen to the stories, in French, of course, as my uncles and relatives would sway in their rocking chairs, reflecting. My sister and I eventually picked up some French, mostly French-Canadian slang, but my father never understood a word! The poor guy never knew what they were talking about. They could have said anything about him, and he’d maybe shake his head, yes or no. There was always laughter when someone would say something that the rest of us didn’t understand. I loved the full house, and all of it was good.
In her fashionable attire and her accent-free Polish, she would befriend the Polish policemen and German soldiers that patrolled the ghetto. Presenting herself as a Christian aid worker from the Aryan side, she would glean immensely useful information regarding the war efforts, movement of guards, and any upcoming plans for the ghetto. On occasion, she even flirted her way into chocolates or cigarettes that she could sell for more useful items for herself or Jerry. Relatively speaking, their physical suffering was minimal, and Gustava’s cunning business savvy paid off handsomely for her family.
In Polish, the woman whispered to Gustava, “Please, take my hand. Tell me that death is a relief from this hell we are in.”
For the next many hours, Gustava held the woman’s hand. Through Roza’s coughing fits, Gustava listened to how the Catholic Pole ended up in Auschwitz with an evidently terminal bout of tuberculosis. Because she was a gentile prisoner, Dr. Mengele gave the order that she was not to be burned alive or sent to the gas chambers. But in his ‘generosity,’ he instead condemned her to a very slow and painful death in the medieval-quality infirmary.
In Roza’s final hours of life, Gustava was able to provide comfort, only in the form of a listening ear, but a comfort nonetheless. Roza rested one hand atop Gustava’s while her other hand rubbed the medallion around her own neck. Dangling from an old silver chain hung the ovular shape of the Lady of Czestochowa, the Catholic queen and protector of Poland. Roza’s delicate fingers never left the touch of the necklace. Each time she had to raise herself to expel the fluid from her lungs, Roza tugged at the necklace, as if to raise herself from the pull of the chain.
As the coughing grew weaker and the whispers inaudible above the cacophony of the other prisoners, Roza pulled her arm above her head with the necklace in tow. Removing the beloved jewelry from her neck, she transferred it to the hand that had been holding Gustava’s and laid the amulet into her palm. Wrapping Gustava’s fingers around the necklace and her own fingers around Gustava’s, Roza whispered her final words, “Wear this, Dear. The Lady of Czestochowa will save your life.”
After snatching several minutes or hours of desperately needed sleep, Gustava shifted in her cot and awoke. She realized that the hand on her own was cold. Returning Roza’s stiff arm back onto her dead body, Gustava blessed her with peace, hoping Roza had found the relief she desperately desired from the hell of Auschwitz.
Opening her palm and finding her new friend’s beloved necklace, Gustava tucked her chin to her chest and slid the Lady of Czestochowa around her neck. The saintly portrait of the Black Madonna was heavily worn and faded, but the Lady’s angelic halo still shimmered with its golden glow of protection. Gustava would honor Roza’s last request, and later, it really would save her life.
