An introduction to The Lace Makers

While The Lace Makers is a work of fiction, I spent the better part of a year researching the real lives of Civil War era slaves and Holocaust victims.  It was a harrowing and life-changing experience, just as writing this novel has been.  There are countless names and faces I've encountered who have given me the determination to finish a book that revealed itself over time and in a manner unlike anything I have ever experienced.

Along the way, I discovered the work of a heroic photographer, Mendel Grossman, who risked his life to take pictures of the Lodz ghetto in 1940.  Eventually he was sent to a prison camp and later died during a forced march, days before the Germans surrendered. 

He still had his camera with him.

Grossman's images are haunting.  One in particular sat on my desk as I wrote The Lace Makers.  The photograph shows a brother sharing food with his little sister...such a simple, yet incredibly profound image.  I imagine that neither of the children survived the purging of the Lodz ghetto, so in many ways, I wrote this novel for them and for all of the children who did not survive slavery or the Holocaust. 

They have no living legacy, but the stories that remain help keep their memories alive in our hearts.