Mindele's Journey: Memoir of a Hidden Child of the Holocaust

Mindele’s Journey began when her father pulled her onto the rooftop through an attic window to escape Nazi soldiers. Her mother and four siblings were not so lucky. Mindele never saw them again. Her father went into hiding while she was taken to a convent and renamed Mariette. As danger loomed, the Mother Superior sent her to live in the Belgian countryside where she was protected and nurtured by three loving women she called “les tantes.” Mariette will have a life-long relationship with them. The “war after the war” began when Mariette's father took her back to live with him in the squalor of a world devoid of meaning for the Jews who survived. They emigrated to America, but she will always feel torn between two worlds. After a broken marriage, her quest for wholeness took her to Iran. Looking up at thousands of shards of broken mirror covering the domed ceiling of a mosque, Mariette suddenly saw herself as all those broken pieces. “Do you remember?” fills the pages as she flees and returns to so many lives: as a Jewish child in a convent, as a free-spirited woman, and eventually as the lover of a German dealing with his own war-tainted history. You are invited to pack your imaginary bags and come along on Mindele’s Journey….through war-torn and post-war Europe, the world of the artist and musician she married, the travels to Germany, Israel, Brazil, and Iran, seeking to unravel the secrets of her past. “Mindele’s Journey” was edited by Nancy Wait.