197 Pages
ISBN 978-1-917120-64-7
Colour Images
 
The memory of Eliot’s grandparents (Bubbies and Zaydies in Yiddish) reside in a special place in his heart. Raised as the youngest of three siblings in Bloomfield, CT, he chose to spend endless precious hours in their company. Eliot was at once enthralled and scared by the visceral stories they told him about growing up Jewish and destitute in Eastern Europe just after the turn of the 20th Century.

In the early 1920s, they bravely left their tiny shtetls, in which every member of their immediate and extended family lived, in search of better lives. In so doing, they had the good fortune of fleeing before the arrival of the Nazis who annihilated nearly every living relative.

Eliot’s paternal Bubbie died before he was born. His Zaydie remarried a neighbour whom he had known for decades from his tight-knit Jewish community of Brooklyn, NY. It was as if she was sent straight from 'central casting' - short, stout, and opinionated with a thick accent. But, she was different from Eliot’s other grandparents - she was funny despite her stories of being imprisoned at Auschwitz. She quickly became the religious matriarch of the family - the authority on all matters of Judaism.

Bubbie died in 2005. Seven years later, a mysterious letter from Germany arrived. Eliot shares not only the story of his loving connection with his Bubbie and her relationship with his family, but also the true story of who she was and the dark secrets she kept.