Joanie Holzer Schirm - My Dear Boy: A World War II Story of Escape, Exile, and Revelation

A personal story of the triumph of the human spirit and the universal quest for peace, Joanie Holzer Schirms My Dear Boy takes us on a journey around much of the world, traversing history as well as geography. It is a timeless and moving World War II story told by the author through the words of her refugee father.

Nina Streich, executive director, Global Peace Collaborative

Educators will find no better book than My Dear Boy to provide the sweeping context of pre and World War II multi-continental events.

William Bill Younglove, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Fellow

This stunning tribute to Schirms fathers legacy of service reminds us that our examination of the human heart as individual characters should lead us to protect the dignity of all others, no matter the friction of our differences.

Buddy Dyer, mayor of Orlando

Funny, sad, poignant, insightful, and spiritual, My Dear Boy is simply captivating and lovingly told by his daughter, a rare English-speaking writer who really seems to understand Bohemia. I could not put it down.

P. R. Pinard, PhD, American historian working in Prague since 1993

Soul-searching, real, and human.... By sharing her fathers story and the four hundred letters he left behind, Joanie has given him immortality.

Moying Li, award-winning author of Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China during the Cultural Revolution

We learn from My Dear Boy how refugees and survivors in World War II were thrown into the midst of historical events and how they acted. There is enormous educational potential in the story of Dr. Oswald Holzer. We meet a man with values who never lost his empathy toward the other. We learn that trauma often is overcome by resilience. Holzers life can teach future generations about history and humanity.

Susanne Urban, PhD, former head of Historical Research and Education at the International Tracing Service, Germany

A fascinating and very poignant story of professionalism, dedication, and survival! I understand Joanie Schirms efforts to preserve the details of her fathers saga.

Lee R. Hiltzik, PhD, assistant director and head of donor relations and collection development at the Rockefeller Archive Center, New York

Out of the emotional landscape of her fathers experiences comes an extraordinary story of hope, passionately written.... At the heart of this book is the message in one letter that changedthe way Dr. Holzer lived his life. This book is a labor of love for a daughter who tells a compelling story of a father who lived an exemplary life.

Bill Nelson, U.S. senator, Florida

Schirms power as a writer lies in her gift of crystalline focus. Her family story is one of grace in the face of universal struggle: full of awe, dappled synchronicities, and complicated life happenings that touch ones core. It is a gift for the next generation and the next.

Pat Williams, senior vice president of the Orlando Magic and author of Coach Woodens Forgotten Teams

I sometimes wonder what I would have done.... Would I have seen that the only real choice for survival was to leave the people I loved and everything I knew? Or would I have stayed, confident (wrongly so) that things would get better? Thank you for touching my heart and moving me to think about questions like that.

Laurie Lee, former deputy director of Just Read, Florida! Florida Department of Education

Through her books and the meticulous research that supports them, Joanie has brought to light the remarkable Holocaust story of her father, Oswald Holzer, and his friends as they fled occupied Czechoslovakia.

Mitchell Bloomer, resource teacher at the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida

The Oswald A. Holzer archival collection is one of the most substantive and comprehensive collections Ive reviewed about a particular individuals experience during the time period relating to the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. From this rich information, author Joanie Schirm has created a story that brings this tumultuous past to life again and today echoes loudly as a warning we must heed.

Allan J. Stypeck, accredited senior appraiser, American Society of Appraisers

My Dear Boy, which shares an incredible story through voices of seventy-year-old letters, including a fathers timeless message, will bring our world more peace and tolerance.

Dr. Navid Vahidi, member of the Orlando Bahai community

Joanie Holzer Schirm

Potomac Books

An imprint of the University of Nebraska Press

2019 by Joanie Holzer Schirm.

Unless otherwise noted, all images are used with permission of the Holzer Collection.

Epigraph illustration: Chinese man on donkey, 1940. Caricature by Oswald Valdik Holzer.

Cover designed by University of Nebraska Press; cover images are from the interior.

All rights reserved. Potomac Books is an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Schirm, Joanie Holzer, author.

Title: My dear boy: a World War II story of escape, exile, and revelation / Joanie Holzer Schrim.

Description: Lincoln: Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, [2019] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018028078

ISBN 9781640120723 (cloth: alk. paper)

ISBN 9781640121713 (epub)

ISBN 9781640121720 (mobi)

ISBN 9781640121737 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH : Holzer, Oswald A., 19112000. | JewsCzech RepublicBeneov (Okres)Biography. | Jewish refugeesChinaShanghaiBiography. | Jews, CzechChinaShanghaiBiography. | Beneov (Czech Republic: Okres)Biography.

Classification: LCC DS 135. C 97 H 657 2019 | DDC 940.53/18092 [B]dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018028078

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

To my grandfather Arnot Holzer, for his universal wish for how we should lead our lives.

To my father, Oswald Valdik Holzer, MD , who saved the wish and his letter collection for me to discover, understand, and share.

To my mother, Ruth Alice Lequear Holzer, who stood lovingly alongside my father and me at the times we needed it most.

To the calm waters of Floridas Indian River lagoon, protected from surf and storm by the barrier island that provided a safe haven for the Holzer family.

One day I will write a book about people and places Ive seen. I might begin with a story about real pirates, a sea-dog from Shantung, and an undercover photographer for Life magazine. Ill continue with a quizzical tale about a farting missionary, a charming Grandpa who spoke Chinese to me, to which I responded in Czech in order to call attention to his oversight. Ill describe missionary ladies over the age of sixty who with their constricted lips look like industrial teachers and about the Chinese and Japanese cruel warfare with travel in blacked out trains. All these things I went through in the past two months. It was life so colorful I could never imagine it could be so.

Oswald Valdik Holzer, MD , Pingting Hsien, Shansi (Shanxi) Province in North China, to his cousin Hana Winternitz in Great BritainRefugees from their Nazi-occupied Czech homeland, March 8, 1940