Grandmother’s Radio

Once touched, always touched. The casualties go on. The Holocaust screams, whispers, but never goes away. Deborah Miller opens sharply. A non-practicing intermarried Jew, she finds her Christmas disturbed by Hannelore, an unknown cousin who perished at age twelve. “I resent you, Hannelore.” Enter Susanne Heinz, the granddaughter of an SS officer, with her brilliant imagery and tortured being. An unlikely pair. The past lay across their friendship, both shadowing and fleshing out their present “along a guilt-woven wick.” “Divided by a common wound,” they hold back nothing. They afflict each others’ souls. “Long, long may it bleed.” The poetry that results, a burning interplay of style and emotion emerging from the inner psyche of each, singes all preconceptions: “Cat’s Cradle...who tied the noose and handed it to children as a toy?” “Grandfather, how often did you blink?” Poetry is for Miller and Heinz a way of carrying their burden. To do it together is to double the effort. Shockingly stunning. An emotional kaleidoscope.

— Roy Tanenbaum, Rabbi, Beth Tzedec Congregation, Toronto
Author of Prisoner 88, The Man in Stripes
National President, Auschwitz Awareness Society

“Awareness of our history’s legacy is an essential condition for shaping our future. Thus, it was with profound satisfaction that I read through this collection of poetry written by two remarkable women. It is a unique blend of reflections on past painful experience and forward-looking optimism, sensitizing the reader and disallowing the crimes of National Socialism to fall into oblivion. By the same token, the poetry promotes a peaceful future in mutual understanding. I sincerely hope that this collection will find many readers.”

— Dr. Jürgen Pöhlmann
Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany, Ottawa