Dear soon to be graduates of Ms. Van Alstyne’s English Class:
(Ed. Note: Writer Heather Dune Macadam is the author of Rena's Promise, a non-fiction account of the first transport of women into Auschwitz. The book is required reading in many high schools and colleges and this blog is devoted to some of the many questions she receives from students who have read the book) Thank you so much for such insightful and provocative letters about Rena’s Promise. I was very moved this morning, as I opened the package your teacher sent and perused your epistles while sitting on the couch, dog at my feet, a cup of coffee steaming by my side. One of the truly meaningful moments in an author’s life is receiving responses like yours—fresh, energetic, emotional and honest. Rena and I wrote her story with young people like you in mind and that we are reaching you, still, reminds me that our journey together has not ended but continues, despite the fact that she has left us. So, you asked me a number of questions, which I hope to respond to as I take the morning off from my normal Saturday morning duties and relax. No, I would not have survived. I am tall and thin and lose weight far too easily. I would have been a musselman and if I had the strength I think I would have grabbed the wires to put an end to my misery. I also don’t know that I would have shared my food with my brother, as we always fight over the last of the ice cream! I think he would have done more for me though because he is the eldest and is used to taking care of me. I have always been interested in WWII and resistance fighters. My family is Quaker and we had the first stop on the underground railroad on the northern side of the Mason Dixon Line. My family hid slaves and were threatened constantly by bounty hunters but never gave any slave up to them, so as a young person I knew that we would have hidden Jews, as well. We would have risked our lives to protect whom we could. That sense of identity is very strong in me. Like Rena, I always fight for the underdog. Many of you were interested in how I felt writing her story and if it affected me and how… That is a long answer, but let me tell you two stories: the first was how when I met Rena I was about to start another project, one that would bring in some badly needed income. I was a college estudent and quite poor, when I wrote Rena’s Promise, and John and Rena were not rich. They used to give me $50.00 a month to help with gas and expenses. I was sitting in a park, watching my Dalmatian chase squirrels, and wondering if I should write Rena’s story or not, and a friend asked me what I felt about Rena. “I Feel if I don’t write her story, I shall miss something very important to my life,” I said. It was a cloudy day, and when I looked up the clouds seemed to shift and expand, and I knew that I was supposed to write her story. Rena’s Promise has never made huge amounts of money, but that is not important. What is important is that you and young people like you all around our country and the world, are moved by her story, and that her story changes something inside of you that you will carry with you, I hope, for the rest of your life. That is so much more than money. That is the spirit that sustains us from within, the same spirit which sustained her through the darkness of Auschwitz. The second story is when I had started writing her story. Initially, I thought I could just type up the interviews and we would have a book, but it does not work that way. The spoken word and the written word are two very different ways of communication, so after typing and typing and then reading what I had typed, I knew I had a lot more work to do. I took a week to watch every single Holocaust movie available at the local video store; this was before Schindler’s List was out. I watched a movie called, Playing for Time, and a few others that I don’t recall now; and Sophie’s Choice. You have probably not read Sophie’s Choice nor seen the movie, but both are extraordinary (one of the greatest moments in my writing life was meeting Bill Styron, the author, a few years before he died). Styron was a novelist, so he could create a scene and a character and make things up, if he wanted to. Anyway, the scene where Sophie has to make her choice is devastating—it is also fiction—I stood up and went into the kitchen, saying something like “I think I’ll make popcorn.” Really, I just wanted to get away from the movie and the friends I was watching it with, so I could be alone. They found me sitting on the kitchen floor sobbing. “Rena is real,” I said to them. “She’s not a movie. She’s a real. Her story is real.” That moment changed everything for me and how I wrote her story. I wanted it to be as real to you as it was to me, as it was for her. Writing Rena’s story was incredibly emotional for both of us. In order for me to truly render it I had to walk in her shoes. I did things like make macaroni water and sip it—remember in the New Blocks how they make macaroni? Well, Rena used to drink the water whenever she made macaroni because she thought it tasted so wonderful (I do not! But drinking it told me how hungry they must have been, to think macaroni water was so delicious). I ate potato scraps to see how they tasted, cold and dirty. Yuck! But if you are starving: Yum! I also had a very cold house that helped me understand how much colder it was in Birkenau (my heat wouldn’t go over 55 degrees—tropical to someone living in 20-30 degree temperatures) and I used to write a 4am, so I could sense the Raus! Raus!, the cold, the darkness…. Rena cried through much of the telling of her story, especially when she told me about the children going to the gas chamber. When you listen to the segment of the tapes where she tells about the children, it is about 30 seconds long surrounded by five minutes of sobbing. When I wrote it she said, “I don’t know how you got it so accurate. You must have read the truth in my tears because I could never put any of it into words.” We were very, very close. I used to refer to myself as a Method Writer (like a method actor) so, in fact, I did often feel as if I were channeling Rena. In the places where she could not speak what she had seen, it was up to me to be her voice and often she would then read it and be able to add more or correct what I had written, but in the case of the children I was spot on. Writing that section was one of those rare moments a writer experiences, where there was nothing to change afterwards. I wrote it with tears streaming down my face and my eyes closed, seeing it before my eyes. Like a movie. When I opened my eyes and read what I had written I knew I had gotten it right. It was also the very last section I wrote in the book. I wrote everything else and went back to that because it was so hard to face. As for the research I did and the footnotes, I felt that I wanted to address any doubts readers might have regarding her story by validating some of the moments. I wish I had used more now! But the idea of including the footnotes started because of the children going to the gas. I was haunted by it and I wanted to prove what she had seen, beyond a shadow of a doubt, so I went into the Wake Forest University archives and searched the Auschwitz Chronicles to see is I could find proof. She thought it was cold out, so I started in October 1942 and read every single day until I reached Jan. 30 1943. I got chills and felt sick to my stomach when I read: “518 children are killed in the gas chambers” (Rena’s Promise 134). It was a Sophie’s Choice moment. This is real. This is very, very real. After that, I began to search for more information and realized that the footnotes gave a context to her story. There was so much going on that she did not know because she was a prisoner and I felt that giving a larger context would let the reader have a more complete perspective on her story. I think that is why it is so upsetting to hear people deny the Holocaust and why it is so important for intelligent and well educated young minds, like yours, to carry on the truth. The survivors are old and none will be around in a few years. You can’t meet Rena anymore, though she would have loved it. You can hear her voice, share her story, and carry her message of love to all people into the world though and that is what she longs for us to do. She did not differentiate people by their religions—she loved everyone. She did not care if you were Muslim, Catholic, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Mormon, B’hai, Jew… Rena’s children and I are very close as well. I am actually going to see Danka in two weeks. She has Alzheimer’s and does not remember anyone but she loves hugs and kisses. When I first met Danka, I was amazed at how different she was from her sister—quieter, more passive, but strong willed. She always wears three-quarter length sleeves to hide her number but as we were sitting in the back of a car, going to a reception, she asked me if I would like to see her number? I nodded and she gently pushed up her sleeve. Her son could not believe it! I traced the numbers with my finger and then she held my hand and told me how much she loved the book. The last time I saw her, we were at a restaurant, it was the last time the sisters saw each other. Danka had just started to get ill and Rena was in a wheelchair and not doing well. Danka began to hide bread in her napkin and Rena took her hand and told her (in Polish) that she didn’t need to do that. There was lots of bread to eat now. It was touching and heartrending—starvation is something no one ever truly gets over, I think. One last question was regarding Marek—Rena tried to reach him but he stayed in Poland and she did not want to return there. You can see in the epilogue what happened to him. I hope I have answered all of your questions! Thank you again for sharing your insights and thoughts with me. I will make copies of your letters and send the originals up to John this week, so he can read them. I don’t think he’ll read them with dry eyes. Much love, Heather Dune Macadam PS Please let Alicia know that I am going to Barcelona this summer and can’t wait to visit her country!
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