A Holocaust Memoir of Love & Resilience: Mama's Survival from Lithuania to America

With the Nazi occupation of Kovno (Lithuania) her life changed forever. Zlata Santocki Sidrer was Jewish but she survived the horrors of the Holocaust.Gone was her normal life and her teenage dream of becoming a doctor. Instead she witnessed untold deprivations massacres imprisonment hunger and slave labor before being transported to the Stutthof Concentration Camp. Her story of the death march is a testament to her fighting spirit and the limits of human endurance. Yet the challenges did not end with liberation. Lovingly compiled from recorded interviews and researched by her eldest daughter Ettie this is an account of a remarkably resilient woman who raised herself out of the ashes after unimaginable hardship and sorrow. She found love and happiness where none could be expected--a secret marriage in the ghetto escapes dangerous border crossings reunifications and life-saving friendships.Etties quest to learn more about her ancestry led her to Lithuania and Poland-in her mothers footsteps. The author reflects on the impact of her familys experiences on her own beliefs and behaviors thereby adding to the literature about Second Generation and transgenerational trauma.In these memoirs she honors her family by telling their amazing story of survival and collects evidence to corroborate their painful history.