Cover Image: My Dear Boy

My Dear Boy

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Member Reviews

My Dear Boy is a touching tribute to the author's father and his incredible story. In early 2000, Joanie Schirm and her two older siblings lost both parents within a day of each other. As they sorted through their parents' belongs they stumbled across a collection of letters from. WWII that none of,them had seen. Schirm undertook the research and the writing to tell her father's story. It's a rich tale: his childhood in Bohemia, medical training, escape from Nazi Germany, meeting and marrying his wife in China, move to the US and subsequent career moves to South American and Around the US. She highlights his painful realization of what happened to his parents in 1942. This is a loving testament to. Man who lived several lifetimes and had a plethora of experiences.

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Amazing story! I don't know what I expected but I received so much more. There was a lot of detail but that became easy to push through over time. This is not "just another" Holocaust book. In spite of knowing about the history of the time, I found myself sitting on the end of my chair, hoping against hope that no one would die. The characters were so real! The author made her family come alive. Although their lives were shortened by the cruelty of anti-semitism, they were well lived and they passed it onto their son and their grandchildren. I wish this was required reading in schools today.

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A must read for aficionados of the holocaust as a child rediscovers her family's history through her father's letters which tell of his escape from the Nazis and subsequent travels and travails.

Inspiring and humorous in turn, as well as chilling in parts the book highlights a triumph of the human spirit and a deep determination to survive.

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