Nancy Sprowell Geise

Writer • Author • Speaker

Miracle Beyond Miracles! Photos of Joe's Mother and Two Brothers Found!!!

November 25, 2015  /  Nancy Geise

In 1942, Joe Rubinstein (21) was taken from his home by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz. He would never again see another member of his family; they were all killed in the Holocaust. Since the war's end, Joe has been praying for just one photo of them. This week, by a miracle beyond our wildest imagination, Joe was able to hold a photo of his mother and two of his brothers-- Dawid, and Joe's identical twin Chaim. "This is the greatest, greatest gift of my life," 95 year old Joe whispered over and over. After reading about Joe's life story in Auschwitz 34207, people all over the world have joined Joe in praying that he find a photo of his family. Through the great work of a researcher, we were able to obtain the original ID forms with photos, long believed lost, of when Joe's family was forced by the Nazis into the ghetto in Radom, Poland.

As you can imagine, this was an incredible shock to Joe to suddenly see the beautiful faces of his beloved family. Please keep him in your prayers as he processes waves of new emotions--joys and sorrows anew, and that we will still find photos of two additional siblings. Through these long lost photos, we all feel as if his mother and brothers have in a sense, come back to life again. The miracle of Joe's Journey continues and continues. We are praising God for such a tremendous blessing this Thanksgiving week! Amen!  (Joe's identical twin Chaim is on right with dark hair.)

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An Experience of a Lifetime

November 10, 2015  /  Nancy Geise

Sharing Joe Rubinstein's story, Auschwitz 34207, at the Library of Congress yesterday, along with Anthony Pitch (author of the powerful book: Our Only Crime was Being Jewish), was truly one of the greatest honors of my life. Thanks to everyone who helped make this event possible and for all of those able to come. Thanks especially to two very special women: Gail Shirazi (event organizer, Library of Congress); and Michlean Amir (event moderator, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum). The entire experience, and the warm welcome from everyone, was beyond imagination. Thanks, too, to my husband Doran for all his logistical help and support throughout this memoriable trip. Without him, none of this would have been possible. Thanks also to Marsha Dubrow for helping spread the word, and to Crystal Geise for additional event publicity. (First three photos and the last below are by Bruce Guthrie. Thanks Bruce!) May the world never forget the holocaust and the precious lives lost and the survivors, whose lives were changed forever.

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Washington D.C. events!

November 10, 2015  /  Nancy Geise

Join me for a book signing on Sunday November 8th at U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and November 9th at the U.S. Library of Congress! What a tremendous honor to be invited to share Joe's story, Auschwitz 34207, in such incredible places with so many wonderful people! Thanks to everyone who made these events possible!


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Recording Joe's Voice For Audio Book Quotes!

October 17, 2015  /  Nancy Geise

Yesterday was a dream come true! Joe and Irene joined me in Denver to meet narrator Richard Reiman to record Joe's opening chapter quotes for the audio version of Auschwitz 34207.

While there were a few tears reliving these sometimes painful words, there was also an abundance of love and laughter as Richard tenderly promoted Joe, sentence by sentence. We had fits of laughter with the hearing challenges when Joe had to turn his hearing aids off for the recording but then could not hear the prompts. With Richard's incredible voice talents, and the special quotes in Joe's own voice, preserved now forever, this is going to be one POWERFUL Audio Book!  (Photos of our great day followed by celebration lunch.)

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U.S. Library of Congress Presentation. Book Signing Holocaust Museum

October 11, 2015  /  Nancy Geise

I am so honored to be presenting Auschwitz 34207 at the U.S. Library of Congress in Washington D.C. on November 9th with fellow author, Anthony Pitch, sharing information about our books followed by a discussion moderated by Michlean Amir (The U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum Resource Coordinator). On Sunday, November 8th, I have the great pleasure of doing a book signing at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C. A very special thank you to Gail Shirazi of The Library of Congress and Michlean Amir and Paul Messersmith of the Holocaust Museum for helping to make these wonderful events possible. Please tell your family and friends...and join us November 8th and 9th in Washington D.C.  Spread the word!


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Award of Excellence from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C.

September 17, 2015  /  Nancy Geise

In July 2015 I had the tremendous honor to share Joe's Rubinstein's story, Auschwitz 34207, with the staff and volunteers of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. and was so grateful (and overwhelmed) to be awarded the Coin of Excellence from Dana Carroll, the Director of Museum Services. What a tremendous day to be in the company of so many who have dedicated their lives helping the world to never forget!  I have been invited back to the Museum for a book signing on November 8, 2015 followed by a presentation at the U.S. Library of Congress November 9th! Wow! 


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Happy 95th Birthday to Holocaust Survivor Joe Rubinstein!

September 15, 2015  /  Nancy Geise

Please join me in wishing this incredible man, a very happy birthday by writing him a note in the comment section of this post. You can read more about Joe's story: Auschwitz 34207. Currently #1 on Amazon in Holocaust Memoirs (Kindle)! Joe was born September 16, 1920.

Joe was taken by the Nazis from his home in Radom, Poland when he was 21 and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. He would never again see his family. His widowed mother and his four siblings, including identical twin, were later killed at the Treblinka death camp. Since the day he was taken, Joe has never returned home. Yet, Joe's is a story of tremendous hope, love, courage and faith...of overcoming against all odds. 

 

 

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Auschwitz 34207 Back at #1

August 30, 2015  /  Nancy Geise

What a nice way to start a Sunday morning. Auschwitz 34207 is back at #1 on Amazon's Best Seller list for Holocaust Memoirs. It changes hourly, but for the last few months, it has been either #1 or #2. Thanks to all for you support in spreading the word about Joe's incredible story!

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Biographies-theHolocaust/zgbs/digital-text/154784011

Photo by Toltek/iStock / Getty Images

Photo by Toltek/iStock / Getty Images

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Nice article today in the McPherson Sentinel

August 25, 2015  /  Nancy Geise

Thank you to Cheyenne Derksen (staff writer) and the McPherson Sentinel for their wonderful article today about Auschwitz 34207! I really appreciate Cheyenne taking the time to ask me in-depth questions about Joe's remarkable story. (One correction to the article that I don't think I communicated well to her... Irene's beloved teenage brother was killed by the Nazis but her parents and other family members survived the war.) Joe's entire immediate family was killed, including his mother, three siblings and his identical twin.

http://www.mcphersonsentinel.com/article/20150824/NEWS/150829704

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Nominated for 3 Awards

August 25, 2015  /  Nancy Geise  /  Source

Auschwitz 34207 is a finalist for three incredible awards by the CIPA-EVVY Awards in the categories of: Biography, History and Cover Design! The winners will be announced in Denver on Sunday August 22nd. I am so incredibly honored to be in such tremendous company!

 

http://www.cipacatalog.com/cipa-evvy-awards/

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Marsha Dubrow's (DC Art Travel Examiner) wonderful article in Examiner.com

August 10, 2015  /  Nancy Geise  /  Source

July 21, 2015 4:12 PM MST 

Young Joe Rubinstein. 'Auschwitz #34207 The Joe Rubinstein Story'. Courtesy of author Nancy S. Geise, used with permission 

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'Auschwitz #34207 The Joe Rubinstein Story' by Nancy Sprowell Geise. Cover image courtesy of Nancy Sprowell Geise, used with permission

Two things that Rubinstein had kept hidden for 70 years until agreeing to the book: he was forced to work as a Sonderkommando (Special commando/death brigade), moving bodies from Auschwitz's gas chambers to open pits, and was sexually assaulted repeatedly by a fellow inmate, a capo whom even the SS guards feared, author Nancy Sprowell Geise said. 

The author had offered to leave out those two most gruesome of all the indignities. But Rubinstein told her, “'The story is not complete without them. This needs to be told.’” Although extremely worried about his family’s reactions, after the book came out in April, Rubinstein's grandson told him, “'I never loved you more.’”

Rubinstein's story began before dawn on a frigid morning in one of Radom, Poland’s Jewish ghettos, when German soldiers with machine-guns forced 21-year-old Joe, wearing only a thin undershirt, pajama bottoms and no shoes, into a crowded open truck. “'But I haven’t done anything wrong,’” he kept saying. Overnight, several of the captured men froze to death. That was just the first of many “miraculous, improbable escapes from death” during more than two years at several camps, Geise told the rapt audience.

He arrived at Auschwitz, the most notorious Nazi death camp, on April 30, 1942. He was made a Sonderkommando (Special commando/death brigade), moving thousands of corpses. “He prayed for their souls and prayed that his family would not be among them,” the author said. Rubinstein’s entire family was killed in the Holocaust, including his widowed mother, his identical twin, and three other siblings. (They were among the 380,000 Jews from Poland's Radom District who lost their lives during the time of the German occupation, according to the Radom Regional Commission.) 

When Joe was transferred to a coal mining sub-camp of Auschwitz, he thought the worst was over. But there, he was repeatedly sexually abused.

In the book, written in Joe’s voice, he says, “Death would have been easier than spending the rest of my life trying to forget and forgive myself" for the sexual attacks. "The only thing that kept me from taking my life was the realization that my death would have been the final victory of evil, taking every last morsel of my being and that of my family.” He adds, “Every day, I chose life.”

And how did he manage to continue choosing life day after day, camp after camp, until being liberated when he was perilously near death from TB and starvation?

“He never gave up on life, on love, or God,” the author noted. “He’s amazing. He says, ‘Tell everyone life is precious, love life, love God.’”

Knowing that no one he had loved was alive, he never returned to Poland. He and a fellow freed inmate, a German Jew, went to Germany. There, he fell in love with a Catholic woman, Irene -- and they've been married for 68 years. They emigrated to the United States in 1950. 

In New York, this man who had been barefoot when seized by the Nazis, and whose feet were bloodied by the wooden clogs he wore in Auschwitz (Joe explains "If my feet became infected, I would not be able to work and I would be shot.") -- became one of America’s leading shoe designers.

His shoe sketches got him hired by Beth Levine, the designer (and wife) of Herbert Levine Shoes -- so esteemed that it had a retrospective at New York's Metropolitan Museum in 1976, a year after the manufacturer closed. Rubinstein became the lead designer for Nina Shoes.

Later, in yet another improbable life event, he and Irene moved to the Midwest, to a retirement home managed by Geise. Noticing part of his usually covered tattoo #34207, Geise eventually asked whether her daughter might interview him for a school project. “'Never,’” Rubinstein responded.

Geise never mentioned it again, but after they became well acquainted, he asked her to write his story. “Joe realized that when he dies, everything would die with him. His (current) family and the family he lost deserved for his story to get out,” she explained.

“I'm the most unlikely person to do this. I’m not Jewish. I’m not a Holocaust scholar.” She thanked the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) repeatedly for their extensive research and additional help, and "for their dedication to helping us all never forget."

“I crawled into a cave, a very dark cave, for three years to write it.” She published the book on Amazon.com, and it shot to #1 in Amazon's Holocaust memoir section, and remains at the top of the list. It's also on BlueInk Review's Best Books of 2015.Among the many very positive write-ups, the prestigious "Kirkus Reviews" termed it "A riveting, well-documented account of survival that’s harrowing, inspiring and unforgettable."

Geise's other book, “The Eighth Sea,” which she describes as “historical Christian fiction,” also has done very well. Initially, she had no confidence in it, and stashed it away in a drawer for 23 years.

So the author encouraged everyone to “Follow your dream; don’t give in to fear.”

And regarding the Holocaust, “The most important thing we can all do is make sure that people never, never, never forget.” The museum presented her with its Coin of Excellence.

"This book is dedicated to the millions of Holocaust victims who did not live to share their stories."

For more info:  “Auschwitz #34207 The Joe Rubinstein Story," by Nancy Sprowell Geise, who will speak at the Library of Congress in October. U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, S.W., near the Washington Monument on the National Mall, Washington, D.C. 202-488-0400.

 

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Many thanks to the U.S. Memorial Holocaust Museum!

August 10, 2015  /  Nancy Geise

It was truly one of the greatest honors of my life to share Joe's remarkable story with the staff and volunteers of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. in July. What an incredible audience and experience! Thanks to all the staff of the Museum who helped make this possible and to Marsha Dubrow for covering the event so beautifully in the link below. 

http://www.examiner.com/article/auschwitz-memoir-of-hope-amid-horror-discussed-today-at-holocaust-museum-d-c


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