Fred Feldman - The Story Keeper: Weaving the Threads of Time and Memory, A Memoir

The 20th was the century of refugees. This is the story of Mendel and Freyda, two Polish Jews fleeting the advancing Nazis into the depths of the Soviet Union. But it transmits a universal truth, with two humans representing millions. After a massacre of Jews near Riga, the historian Simon Dubnov cried out to the witnesses: "Schreibt un farschreibt!" - write and record! Fred Feldman honored this duty with gripping tale of terror and redemption. He is "The Story Keeper" for generations to come. This not just history at its best, but an ode to life.

Josef Joffe, Distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Publisher / Editor of the German weekly 'Die Zeit. Essays and reviews in The New York Review of Books,Times Literary Supplement,Commentary,New York Times Magazine,New Republic,Weekly Standard,Newsweek,Time, and Prospect (London)

This book is about real people who have shown incredible courage, determination and resilience beyond anyone's imagination. They endured hell on earth, and it did not end with the war. It is a MUST read, learn and remember. It can happen to anyone.

Teresa Pollin, Retired Archivist from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC

Fred Feldman is indeed the Story Keeper. He acknowledges being "obsessed" with his family's story of life and death in Sokolow, Poland, where most of its Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. His detailed account of how his father Mendel and mother Frieda survived is spellbinding. They faced horrendous difficulties tearing themselves away from their families, staying ahead of the Germans, going deep into Russia, down to the Baltic, back to Azerbaijan (where Fred was born), and then emaciated and with two children to the DP camps in Austria, because Sokolow's Jews had all been killed, including Mendel's mother and siblings.

Also moving is his account of how Mendel and Frieda get to America and manage to build a peaceful and productive life in Indiana, with successful and happy children and grandchildren. Unusual though is Fred's shift of focus from these exciting but conventional dramas to the details of his quest for the details of his family's story - every branch, every person lost or saved, and the photos and stories, each of which he calls a "treasure". Over several years, for example, he collects numerous versions of how his aunt Rojza (age 21) runs away from Sokolow to Israel (becoming Shosanna) and eventually how he settles on a version that accommodates all the apparently conflicting details. Fred's relatives participate in his quest but warn that no one but his own family will be interested in such an in-depth examination. Fred insists, though, that his particular family's history is a "story ultimately without a time and ultimately without a place."

Fred is right. The far-reaching purpose of his particularized search becomes credible as the evidence he collects is integrated by the Holocaust Museum into a collection reflecting, not only what happened to the six million Jews killed during the war, but also to the horrors still being inflicted on many more millions of people. His quest to learn every fact related to his family's experience in the most incomprehensible injustice of modern history exemplifies the universal search for understanding of man's inhumanity to man, and of how to survive and overcome that inhumanity.

Abraham D. Sofaer has been the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and National Security Affairs at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, since 1994, and is now emeritus.

I just spent the last two days reading the book and was mesmerized. The dedication to the author's family history, details and accuracy were inspiring as was the love he felt for his family and their stories. It always amazes me when I read these historical searches how much information is available when a person takes the time to find it. Great job.

Auggie Tomanovich, Maine, U.S.

The Storykeeper is not just a telling of Fred Feldman's family Holocaust story, but a a true-to-life, exquisitely detailed story depicting the qualities of strength, determination, resilience, honor, love, sacrifice and integrity carried from generation to generation. Even the next generation of little children in this family continues to show honor and respect to those who came before, thanks to Fred's determined commitment to elicit so many details of an undocumented history. Reading this book makes you feel as if you are living it with his family - in Poland, on foot to Eastern Europe, Russia, back to Eastern Europe, Poland and DP camps, as well as in Israel, and in America. It is a story of a family torn apart from its roots, each other, and its home in Poland. Those who survived the holocaust amazingly come to reconfigure in a very different world in the US and Israel. When people say, "the past is the past," this book tells us otherwise. We have only to see the world today, 2021, to see that prejudice, hatred, and intimidation have reared their ugly heads all over the world; and that there are still seekers who are willing to sacrifice so much for a better life. And there are still families like the Feldmans who seek to learn from their past.

Sharyn Russell, Haverhill, MA

Dr. Feldman is a classic scientist who has taken a clinical approach to a very personal journey, revealing a heart of compassion in a story of love and discovery. All of us wonder about how we got here, and Feldmans chronicle gives us hope.

Patrick Morand, Kalamazoo, Michigan

Plates in this book and the page number:

1. Mendel and Freyde: Strolling arm-in-arm in Sokolow, p. 361

2. Yitka Vloss, Elka Rosenstein, and Freyda, p. 362

3. Chinka Felman, Mendel Felman and Brothers and Sisters, p. 363

4. 1936 Havurah (Youth Group) in Sokolow before WWII, p. 364

5. Srul and Ephrayim (Irving and Fred) 1946, p. 365

6. Steyer, Austria D.P. Barracks. May 1946, p. 366

7. Camp Policemen, p. 367

8. Freyda and Mendel, Before and After, p. 368

9. Joe and Anna Visit the Wels DP Camp 1947, p. 369

10. Bremerhaven. On the Way to a New Land. October 1949, p. 370