A Flower in Auschwitz
Roxanna's Diaries is gaining popularity, therefore I'm getting more letters. A touching note arrived via the internet. It was challenging to share this historical drama set in Nazi Germany, one of the worst periods in history. I met and spoke with many death camp survivors as a Baby Boomer. I had put this project on hold several times, fearful of entering the Holocaust realm, but I realized that of roughly 250,000 Holocaust survivors, I able to share one beautiful ending to the biggest atrocity in history.
Multiple times, the original diaries have been meticulously reviewed. Despite damage and the loss of pages before her initial entry, the facts and family accounts are enough to paint a thorough portrait of this exceptional woman.
A German woman is sent to Auschwitz to study medicine with her husband, a doctor, and an SS captain. The woman nursed at Auschwitz-Birkenau from 1943 to 1944. She loved a Jewish music store owner in Auschwitz, Poland. In her journals, she prepares the Polish woman’s Auschwitz escape after her capture. From Camp Two, they left Poland through Nazi occupied territories to Lesvos, Greece, for safety. A five-year-old girl was rescued from the gas chamber on their voyage and adopted when her family couldn’t be found. They stayed together in Rome until their 1980s deaths after hiding on Lesvos Island until Germany surrendered. The girl saved the diaries and offered them to me to publish.
Given the tragedies of that time, it is an honor to tell the story of a solitary flower among foul-smelling weeds.
The family who told this genuine story only had to change the protagonists' names. The family requested anonymity, so I changed their names. Similarities to real people—past or present—are coincidental. It was also determined to change all identities, even though many Nazi war criminals were convicted quickly after the war without affecting the plot, but one was not and remained unknown until his death.
The German manuscripts were meticulously translated. Metric measures were converted to imperial for English readers.
