In 1939, Michael (Mietek) Fryd was three years old and living in a small Polish town above his parents’ sporting goods/bicycle shop when Germany invaded Poland. This memoir of his family’s survival centers on his mother’s ability to save his life more than once. Her sheer bravery, cunning, and determination saw them through the ghetto, years of hiding in a root cellar, the challenging and chaotic postwar years, and a Paris slum, and eventually brought them to America.
What begins as a Holocaust story becomes an intimate and compelling tale of the lasting effect that Evelyn Fryd’s strength and cleverness had on her son. Evelyn kept her family alive through secret tips; the manipulation of neighbors, friends, and family; smuggling and lying; and feigning innocence in the face of Nazi officers. Her duplicity served her well the rest of her life as she engaged in legal and illegal enterprises, including black-market operations and money schemes in Poland, France, the US, and Israel. Evelyn had no regrets about doing whatever needed to be done. Fryd, for his part, used some of her tactics when troubles beset him. Though he truly loved her, he does question the choices she made later in life, and her inability to stop living by her ambition and wits.
Fryd’s motivation in writing this memoir was to convey to his children, who were brought up in the relatively safe US, the traditions and history of family members who were killed by those schooled in centuries-old hatreds. He provides substantial personal background as well as information about the Jewish Polish experience. Yet Fryd doesn’t wallow in or constantly bemoan his horrific Holocaust and life experiences. He believes that concentrating only on the horrors, terror, and tragedies of the Holocaust lessens the value of the victims’ life stories.
In straightforward prose, Fryd shares that he spent interminable hours daydreaming and reading in the root cellar, being on the run, hiding on farms, living in orphanages, and bearing antisemitic incidents. He writes candidly about his struggles to adjust to a new country and culture and about his efforts to become a scientist and cultivate relationships.
Fryd depicts the many characters he meets with humor and honesty. The righteous and not-so-righteous Poles, the bureaucrats, the Parisian sex workers, the fellow survivors and students, the family members — they all have their own human flaws and foibles. Fryd provides detailed reflections and compelling descriptions. He owes his writing talents to his years of solitary captivity and his need to create ideas.
While My Mother’s War focuses on the story of Fryd’s mother, it honors all survivors as they found the resolve to rebuild lives that were often filled with underlying anger, broken relationships, and fear.
Renita Last is a member of the Nassau Region of Hadassah’s Executive Board. She has coordinated the Film Forum Series for the Region and served as Programming and Health Coordinators and as a member of the Advocacy Committee.
She has volunteered as a docent at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County teaching the all- important lessons of the Holocaust and tolerance. A retired teacher of the Gifted and Talented, she loves participating in book clubs and writing projects.
