Book Review: Kiss the Red Stairs

The Holocaust, Once Removed

Every few years, all of us should read a book about a modern genocide. They are good reminders of our frail human nature.

Canadian journalist Marsha Leiderman takes us on a different kind of genocide story. She talks about the effects of the Holocaust on the progeny of the survivors. She gives us her story of being a daughter of the Holocaust.

The central thread of this book is Marsha’s divorce — and the immense personal loss she experienced with that life change. She cannot reason why she is so traumatized when her parents suffered far worse than she.

Marsha’s father escaped from a Jewish ghetto in Poland. Somehow, he found a forger who gave him a new identity as a Polish Catholic. Then he escaped into Germany and worked as a farm laborer for a German farmer throughout the war. He lost his entire family to the gas chambers.

Marsha’s mother spent the war as a slave laborer, doing whatever it took to survive until tomorrow. Hard work, crowded barracks, and malnutrition were her plights.

Marsha’s parents found each other after the war. They married and had one daughter. Because of antisemitism still in Poland, they immigrated to Canada and brought two more daughters into the world. Marsha is the youngest.

Epigenetics

Marsha takes us into epigenetics and its implications for humans undergoing extreme trauma.