Secrets in the suitcase

the long version

"Molly Greenberg was born in 1924 in the Eastern European Jewish shtetl Skala Podolska in Poland. An orphan by age three, she was raised in poverty by five older siblings. Her world was shattered on September 17, 1939, when the Soviet army seized control of Skala. This was the beginning of the end of a flourishing Jewish community. By the end of July 1942, the German military was in control of the area. Molly survived by pretending she was Mary, a non-Jew. She lived in constant fear of discovery and extermination. By the end of World War II, only 150 out of 2000 Skala Jews survived. In January 1949, following a few years in a displaced persons camp (where a daughter was born), she and her fellow survivor husband came to America to start a new life. Growing up in Brooklyn, her children were only told that the Nazis murdered their father's father, his sister, and their mother's entire family. This part of Molly's life was off limits-too painful to talk about. When she entered her sixties, during a senior writing class, Molly finally faced her painful past. This book is about her life, in her own words"--