Stories Survive: "My Mother's War" Book Talk

My Mother's War is a gripping memoir by Holocaust survivor Michael Fryd about his mother Evelyn, an indomitable woman who saved her family from the Nazis by demonstrating extraordinary courage and masterful cunning. Armed with nothing but her limitless energy, inborn intelligence, and outsized ambition, she outsmarted German Nazis, Polish antisemites, and Russian soldiers at every turn.

Michael was only three years old when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, triggering World War II and one of humanity's darkest chapters. Forced to leave their home and everything they knew, Michael's mother did whatever it took to keep her family safe from Hitler's clutches. She fled with her family under the cover of night, taking shelter in a root cellar where they lived in hiding for three years. By sheer force of will, Evelyn provided for her family time and time again. Having lost all respect for the law that didn't protect her, she adopted the most creative, and at times illegal, methods of survival. The end of the war was only the beginning, as Michael's mother blazed a trail through treacherous territory in the promise of a better life for her family.