In hon­or of the 65th Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards, Jew­ish Book Coun­cil asked some of this year’s win­ners to share their top rules for writ­ing an award-win­ning book. Richard Simon, recip­i­ent of the 2015 award for Children’s Lit­er­a­ture — togeth­er with his wife and co-author, Tanya — for Oskar and the Eight Bless­ings, decid­ed to go in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion entirely.

In the sum­mer of 1969 I was ten years old. The Mets were hav­ing their best sea­son ever, and Arm­strong and Aldrin took their first steps on the moon, paving the way for me to ful­fill my des­tiny as World’s Youngest Boy Astro­naut. I thought a lot about space trav­el and escape — specif­i­cal­ly out of Levit­town, Long Island, the pre­dom­i­nant­ly Catholic work­ing class town where I grew up and learned first-hand how anti-Semi­tism felt.

The week of the moon land­ing was also the one time a con­ver­sa­tion with my grand­fa­ther went beyond ​“How’s school?” or ​“Qui­et, I have to hear this race.” 

In the sum­mer of 1969 I was ten years old. The Mets were hav­ing their best sea­son ever, and Arm­strong and Aldrin took their first steps on the moon, paving the way for me to ful­fill my des­tiny as World’s Youngest Boy Astro­naut. I thought a lot about space trav­el and escape — specif­i­cal­ly out of Levit­town, Long Island, the pre­dom­i­nant­ly Catholic work­ing class town where I grew up and learned first-hand how anti-Semi­tism felt.

The week of the moon land­ing was also the one time a con­ver­sa­tion with my grand­fa­ther went beyond ​“How’s school?” or ​“Qui­et, I have to hear this race.” 

“When your father was ten, we had some unex­pect­ed vis­i­tors.” He motioned for me to sit. ​“Three rab­bis from the old coun­try, from the city my father came from. Black coats, black suits, black hats, black beards down to here, the works. All they spoke was Yid­dish, not a word of Eng­lish. I under­stood them okay, but I don’t speak Yid­dish, so Grand­ma had to trans­late for me. I couldn’t fig­ure out how the hell they even got to New York, for­get about how they tracked me down to Avenue K.”

“Why did they have to track you down?” I sus­pect­ed gam­bling debts, but thought bet­ter of say­ing so.

He rubbed his fore­head and winced more than smiled. ​“It was crazy. They said my grand­fa­ther, their big rab­bi, had died, and they had to find his suc­ces­sor.” He shook his head. ​“I said, ​‘You’re telling me you don’t got enough rab­bis over there to do the job?’ They said, ​‘We got plen­ty rab­bis, but nobody in the lin­eage.’ Turns out the big rab­bi had to be the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son, going back God knows how long.”

He went on. ​“I told them they couldn’t have found any­one more wrong for the job. I bare­ly had a bar mitz­vah, and I hadn’t been in a shul since. I don’t know Hebrew. I can’t speak Yid­dish. I’m the exact oppo­site of a rab­bi. Do I have to eat a ham and cheese sand­wich on Pesach to prove it?”

This made me laugh.

“You should try it, it’s good. Espe­cial­ly with a milk­shake.” He winked. ​“Any­way, they’re not buy­ing. ​‘Don’t wor­ry,’ they say. ​‘We’ll teach you every­thing,’ they say: ​‘Hebrew, Yid­dish, Torah, Tal­mud— you’ll learn it all, because you have the blood. And our city will be saved because we will once again have a leader who will guide us through these dark times.’” 

He stared into his sweat­ing drink and took a slow sip. ​“I told them, ​‘No.’”

I leaned for­ward, ​“What hap­pened when they got back?”

My grand­fa­ther blinked and looked at me. ​“What do you mean?”

“With­out a new big rab­bi — did they get in trouble?”

My grand­fa­ther could be bro­ken­heart­ed about a los­ing horse for five min­utes, but he was nev­er on his worst day any­thing close to sen­ti­men­tal. At that moment, though, he took my hands in his giant cal­loused ones. ​“Richie, that was just a cou­ple of years before the war. They were all killed.”

Decades lat­er, I had a daugh­ter. Two years ago she turned sev­en, and I found myself gaz­ing into her eyes as she asked me why Jews were being attacked in France, and what exact­ly the Holo­caust was. I imme­di­ate­ly thought back to Grand­pa and our con­ver­sa­tion. Remem­ber­ing how my own awak­en­ing to the Holo­caust was framed by help­less rage, I didn’t want my daugh­ter to feel that, even as I didn’t want to revise his­to­ry to pro­tect her. 

Tanya and I talked about what we want­ed our daugh­ter to take away from the sto­ries of bru­tal­i­ty that our peo­ple had endured. Our answers were the same: that you can sur­vive. And so we told her, but we bal­anced death with life, and tem­pered loss with hope. We told her about the Nazis, about accom­mo­da­tion and com­plic­i­ty, and about the camps — then we told her sto­ries of cun­ning, of will, of survival.

And in this telling the char­ac­ter of Oskar was born. Oskar is the spir­it of sur­vival, the part of me, of Jews, of all oppressed peo­ple, that can escape, mourn, and be born into a new life. He is for me the embod­i­ment of not for­get­ting, nev­er for­get­ting, but also refus­ing to let mem­o­ry be delin­eat­ed only by grief. Oskar was born because I need­ed the exam­ple of his life.

Over time I have found a way to make peace with the fact of the Holo­caust, if not the details, although I along with every Jew on the plan­et will for­ev­er live in its shad­ow. Kristall­nacht in par­tic­u­lar had always dis­turbed me. Why didn’t they all flee? The three rab­bis — why did they go back? And did my grand­fa­ther feel guilt? Of course he did, or he might have cho­sen a dif­fer­ent way to tell me. To spare me, as I was spar­ing my own child.

Richard Simon is chair of the lan­guage depart­ment at an inde­pen­dent school and is co-author of a suc­cess­ful off-Broad­way play. He lives and works with his wife and co-author, Tanya Simon, in Westch­ester, New York.

Relat­ed Content:

• Mar­cia Weiss Pos­ner: Once Upon a Time, Granny Went to the Oven…
• The Lit­tle Boy Star: An Alle­go­ry of the Holo­caust by Rachel Hausfater
• Hid­den: A Child’s Sto­ry of the Holo­caust by Loic Dauvillierl