About The Book

This book is a tribute to my father, Melvin Goldman, and his family. On the audiocassettes he recorded in the late 1970s, while in his mid-fifties, he clearly said he wanted the story he was telling to be preserved in a book, and finally the time seemed right for me to see that through. With this book, I honor his request.

It wasn’t until fairly recently that I realized how significant it is that my father recorded his story on his own initiative, and in the late 1970s. My father simply “talked to his tape recorder” in snippets, when he had free moments at his jewelry store, with no one asking questions for clarification or to shape his narrative. He worked alone. That makes his story rare among Holocaust survivor accounts in the United States. The great majority of them were collected years later than this, and in collaboration with organized institutional efforts. Yale University’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies was established in 1981, and it was only in 1993 that the US Holocaust Memorial Museum opened.

In 1994, filmmaker Steven Spielberg founded the Shoah Foundation, with the explicit purpose of recording oral histories of survivors of, and witnesses to, the Holocaust. In its first five years, the foundation conducted 52,000 interviews around the world; this initiative raised awareness of the importance of gathering and listening to these stories, and offered a path by which survivors could finally open up and share their experiences. Without any prompting, and at a time when the relatively fresh collective trauma of the Holocaust inspired silence rather than reflection, my father knew that he had an obligation—to his family, to himself, and to the world—to give voice to his own experiences. Reliving his most painful years through telling his story took tremendous courage, and wanting a book published took great foresight and wisdom.

It is not an easy story to hear. My father’s family was murdered. He was imprisoned and was a slave laborer, and he was forced to witness incomprehensible atrocities, but he hoped that sharing the story might serve a purpose. Unfortunately, hatred, upheaval, and genocide continue today. Jewish people use the phrase “never again,” and vow to not let the world forget the depths to which people can sink. Stories and testimonies like my father’s are vital to keeping this vow. Their memory is, for us, a blessing.

The Goldmans and Ceders were large, tight-knit Jewish families in Poland, happy and thriving. Then one maniac and his followers murdered nearly all of them—along with millions of others—and scattered the few survivors. I never had the chance to grow up with the normal joys of family traditions, or of times spent with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and family friends. My son, Jason, has also missed out on these joys, and this book will hopefully help fill some voids for him. Because my father’s family was violently wrenched apart when my father was young, most of their stories are gone forever. I’m keenly aware that not knowing these stories weighed heavily on him. My father would be pleased knowing Jason now has more family stories.

Writing this book was extremely difficult at times—heart-rending and exhausting. Sometimes, I had to displace myself in order to get through the material, while listening to my own father’s voice on his tapes. Yet his words drove me to complete the task. He said that the book would have “the sole purpose to dramatize to all the people so that they can understand the inhumanity from man to man, what can happen when a people, no matter what race, is pointed out for religious, racial, or ethnic discrimination, humiliation, or persecution—and even annihilation.” I am still overcome, trying to fathom how anyone could endure such depravity and not let himself be defined by it.

But somehow he did not let hatred and loss define him. He was marked by it and transcended it too. He was a man of hope. Once he said that his book should be dedicated “to all the young children of the world. I hope for them to have a better world, a future, a peaceful and harmonious life for all these kids, and not the way my youth was cut down.” When he sent his written testimony to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, he wrote;

Yes, it is necessary. This is a story of survival, of beating the odds. But also of hope, tenacity, and perseverance. My father struggled, and won. Once he began to recuperate, he promised himself he would learn as much as he could and work hard, and become the best person he could be. He found his place in life, and left a lasting influence on those who knew him. May this book carry his influence to others.

My hope is to share this story with as many people as I can, and through as many ways as possible, as was my father’s wish. Ways I will be reaching out include:

• To individuals—students, historians, and those generally interested in WWII history;

• To places—classrooms, museums, libraries, homes, reading/study groups, and places of worship;

• And through various methods—workshops, readings, curriculum, personal study/learning.

In addition to being a powerful story about surviving the Holocaust, this book should also appeal to people simply interested in memoirs/biographies that speak to character, steadfastness, and triumph in the face of adversity.

L’Shalom,

Lee Goldman Kikel
Summer 2019