Just One - An album of the real people portrayed in my novel

 
 
 

My grandmother Estera and her family.      Garbatka, Poland, 1933. 1) Estera - my grandmother,  2) Gittel - her daughter (my mother) 3) Moishe - Estera's oldest son (Gittel's half brother) 4) Gella - Estera's oldest daughter (Gittel's half sister) 5) Surele - Gella's daughter 6) Mendel - Estera's youngest son (Gittel's brother) 7) Menashe (called "Menachem" in the book) - Gella's husband 8) Civia ("Marisha") - Estera's stepdaughter 9) Leon - Estera's nephew

This is the only known photo of Estera, Gella, and Surele. It was taken on the occasion of Moishe's imigration to Jerusalem, which saved him from the Holocaust. My mother, Gittel, survived slave labor, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen. All the others pictured here perished -- the three generations of Estera, Gella, and Surele together at Treblinka, Autumn 1942.