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Book Talk: “A Woman’s Story of Survival: Franci’s War”
September 22, 2021 @ 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Free
The FHM is pleased to welcome prize-winning 2G journalist and author Helen Epstein for a virtual presentation about her mother’s book: FRANCI’S WAR. Available in paperback, e-book and audio format, it is a powerful and compelling read by a Czech Jew who survived the war as a dressmaker and electrician. This program is held in association with The FHM’s newest exhibition Stitching History from the Holocaust.
Franci Rabinek Epstein wrote her Holocaust memoir in the 1970s but after it was rejected by several publishers, gave it to her daughter. Helen used it as source material. Helen used it in Children of the Holocaust and Where She Came From. In 2018, prompted by #MeToo and inquiries into her mother’s story, Helen revisited the manuscript, annotated it, and sold it to ten publishers around the world.
Late author Franci Rabinek was 19 years old when, in March of 1939, the German Army entered Prague. That day began her six-year journey from Prague to Terezin, to the Czech family camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, to slave labor camp in Hamburg, and to Bergen Belsen where she was liberated by the British.
In this memoir, she offers her intense, candid, and sometimes funny account of those dark years, with the women prisoners in her tight-knit circle of friends. Her daughter provides context in a journalistic Afterword and will answer questions about the process of editing and publishing her mother’s work.
This program is held in association with The FHM’s newest exhibition Stitching History from the Holocaust.