I’m Mad At The US Holocaust Memorial Museum – By Meg Hamand

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On The Table Read Magazine, “the best entertainment eBook magazine UK“, in researching and writing her debut novel, Diamonds in Auschwitz, Meg Hamand discovered a deep anger toward the US Holocaust Memorial Museum for omitting Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, who taught art to children in Terezin, from their exhibit.

Written by Meg Hamand

www.meghamandauthor.com

I’ve learned so many things since researching and writing my debut novel, Diamonds in Auschwitz. The most surprising thing I learned though is the extent of my anger toward the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Table of Contents

The Spark of Inspiration

Diamonds In Auschwitz by Meg Hamand on The Table Read Magazine — Diamonds In Auschwitz by Meg Hamand

Let me back up. I just released my debut novel, Diamonds in Auschwitz. The story came to kind of like a bolt of lightning. I was reading Born Survivors by Wendy Holden (I highly recommend it). As I was driving one day, I was obsessing about a small anecdote Holden mentioned in this nonfiction book about women who gave birth in Auschwitz. One woman had managed to hold onto her engagement ring, a family heirloom, throughout her time in the ghetto. As she was standing in line to enter Auschwitz, she made the decision that the Nazis would not have her ring. She dropped it in the mud outside of the gates of hell.

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Imagining the Ring’s Fate

As I was driving, I imagined what it would have been like to pick up that ring from the dirt outside a concentration camp. First, my mind went to a Nazi guard. That was a sickening thought… all the work to save the ring from the Nazis and they ended up with it anyways.

Then I thought, what if a fellow prisoner found it? True, a precious piece of jewelry was practically valueless in Auschwitz. A prisoner could not eat it, and even if she traded it for food, it would never be enough to keep hunger at bay for long. But besides the monetary value of the ring, what would finding it do to a prisoner?

The Birth of Diamonds in Auschwitz

I saw the plot immediately. A woman – a prisoner in Auschwitz who had lost everything – picked the ring out of the mud. To find something so beautiful, to pick up what a defiant woman who refused to let the Nazis take everything from her left behind, that’s where the story of Diamonds in Auschwitz begins.

Then came the research – about Auschwitz and the living conditions, work assignments, gas chambers; about Terezin (the Jewish ghetto outside of Prague) with its thousands of doomed children who created displays of art still exhibited around the world today and its deceitful outside appeal when the Red Cross visited; about Prague as an architectural wonder, its place in World War II, and its history. The more I read about Prague and Terezin, the more I realized what a perfect location I found for a story about beauty, art, hope, and resistance.

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Uncovering Friedl Dicker-Brandeis and Terezin’s Children

Now onto why I’m mad at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Through my research, I found out about a children’s art class that took place in Terezin. The ghetto was mainly populated with Jewish artists, musicians, and university professors. One woman – Friedl Dicker-Brandeis – taught the children. Instead of smuggling in food, clothing, or blankets when she was deported to Terezin, she filled suitcases with any scrap of paper she could find. She knew the importance of giving the children an outlet for all they were seeing and experiencing.

Before being sent – with about 70 children – to Auschwitz, where she would later be murdered, Brandeis smuggled out suitcases filled with the artwork and poetry the children had completed while in Terezin.

It is estimated that more than 15,000 children went through Terezin. About 100 of them survived.

A Disappointing Visit to the Museum

The artwork from the class in Terezin can be seen in displays all across the world, including the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. After researching Brandeis and her art class, after adding it to my story in Diamonds in Auschwitz, I made a special trip to the museum in Washington DC to see the exhibit.

Friedl Dicker-Brandeis was not mentioned in the Terezin art display.

Of course, I’m not truly upset with the museum. There are literally millions of stories still waiting to be told from the Holocaust and World War II. I know there’s no way the museum can display everyone, as much as it may want to. But if you ask me why the genre I chose to write is historical fiction, this is it. It’s because of Friedl Brandeis. It’s because of the almost 15,000 children whose artistic expression was silenced by the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

The Challenge and Purpose of Writing Diamonds in Auschwitz

Writing Diamonds in Auschwitz was not easy. Almost all of the most brutal scenes in my novel were based in fact. That made them even more difficult to write, to visualize. Many times, I thought, I should change my genre to romance or pick a different historical time period. But, maybe, because it’s so hard to write, so hard to read, so hard to remember – that’s why it’s important.