Judy Batalion, THE LIGHT OF DAYS
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[0:37]Judy battalion is the author of The Light of Days, the untold story of women resistance fighters and Hitler's ghettos
[0:45]Judy was born and raised in Montreal where she grew up speaking English French Yiddish and Hebrew and trying to stay warm
[0:51]She studied the history of science at Harvard and moved to London to pursue a PhD in art history all the while
[0:57]She worked as a curator researcher editor lecturer comic MC
[1:01]scriptwriter dramaturg performer actor producer
[1:05]Translator and a temp eventually she transformed these experiences into material and wrote essays and articles for the New York Times
[1:12]The Washington Post boughed the forward salon the Jerusalem Post and many other publications her stories about family
[1:19]relationships the generational transmission of trauma
[1:22]Pathological hoarding and militant minimalism came together in her book white walls a memoir about motherhood
[1:29]Daughters hood and the mess in between white walls was option by Warner Brothers for whom Judy is currently developing the TV series
[1:35]Cluttered back in 2007 during her phase of career promiscuity
[1:39]Judy was doing research on strong Jewish women at the British library when she happened to come across a dusty old Yiddish book
[1:46]Frying in de Ghettos women in the Ghettos a Yiddish thriller about ghetto girls who hid revolvers and teddy bears
[1:52]bribe Nazis with whiskey and pastry and blew up German supply trains which became the inspiration for the light of days
[1:58]The light of days will be published across Europe and in Brazil and Israel and was optioned by Steven Spielberg's
[2:04]Amlin partners for him Judy is writing the screenplay
[2:07]Judy lives with her husband and three children in New York City. Welcome Judy. Thank you so much for coming on mom
[2:12]Don't have time to read books. I'm so excited to talk about the light of days. I am so excited to be here
[2:18]So for anyone listening Judy and I did an Instagram live at the beginning of the pandemic when her book was
[2:26]Pushed back what a year. What was your original update? June?
[2:31]23 let's push by 10. Oh my gosh. That was such I was just saying that was like such a low moment was when I mean that
[2:37]I was like how do you feel and you're like okay
[2:40]Anyway, finally here we are on the other side of something and at least now the book is finally coming out
[2:47]And you must feel so relieved. I hope or are you still apprehensive?
[2:51]I mean, you know, who knows what will happen in the next five weeks life has been so day by day
[2:58]No, I am very excited. It looks like it should be coming out on April 6
[3:03]Amazing. Yeah, so there's so many great things about your book
[3:07]And let me just tell the subtitle is the untold story of women resistance fighters and Hitler's ghettos
[3:12]And you started off with a very personal introduction about your own family history and how you ended up writing this book and
[3:19]The trauma that has been sort of inherited in generations through your own family and how so why don't we start with that?
[3:26]Tell us the background about your own family's Holocaust story and how your grandmother used to tell it to you every afternoon
[3:34]Which must have been very uplifting after school
[3:37]Tea and cookies and Holocaust stories from your zeta or bubby or whatever
[3:41]So tell me tell me a little bit just start start there with that tragedy
[3:46]I mean by the way was milk and cookies the cookies with like the jam inside and the chocolate with the sprinkles
[3:52]Yeah, my mother's family were Holocaust survivors my grandmother and grandfather ate escaped
[4:00]Occupied Warsaw early or on in the war. I don't even know if I mentioned this in this book
[4:05]My grandmother always tells a story she used to always tell a story
[4:08]She's no longer with us about how she'd be in the rest
[4:11]She didn't look as Jewish as the rest of her family
[4:14]Which becomes a huge theme in my book as well
[4:17]And so she went and stood in the ration lines collecting food and bread for her family
[4:23]And she would hear people sort of disclose where Jews were hiding and
[4:29]She sensed the really insidious danger of staying in Poland
[4:34]and they left they left quite early and
[4:38]Lucky for them. They decided to flee east instead of west
[4:42]So they went toward the Soviet Union and along the way
[4:46]They stayed with one of my grandfather's brothers who was actually killed while they were with him
[4:51]My grandfather had a bullet a mark from the bullet grazed his neck and shot his brother in the heart
[4:57]And that was I mean, that's something we always I grew up with that bullet mark
[5:02]But my grandparents through they were helped at a I don't even talk about this in the books. I'm glad we're getting a chance
[5:07]They were helped through at a convent by nuns
[5:11]They escaped partway by swimming
[5:14]Partway in a I believe I know I'm putting together a lot of
[5:18]Stories from the family that they were I remember my grandmother telling me they weren't in a truck that carried food
[5:23]And they were hidden in the truck and they made their way to the Soviet Union or to Russia at the time
[5:29]And they were then like many Jews who went east transported to Siberian gulags
[5:34]It's a camp since Iberia
[5:36]Where and that is how they survived and in fact the bulk of Polish Jews who did survive
[5:41]Were survived because they survived in these camps in Russia which in it and of themselves were
[5:47]Really apparently very horrible living conditions. They were work camps in Siberia
[5:53]Almost nobody writes about that experience if that's the next product
[5:57]No, it's not and they were then called the Asian Jews
[6:00]These were the Polish Jews that went east and and survived because of
[6:05]Because of that so that that's my family story
[6:08]Which is not the same as the story. I tell I know but I just like to find out about
[6:14]The way you even wrote about it about can I just read this little section when you talk about your family
[6:18]And then we'll talk about the rest of the book and everything
[6:21]But you wrote I come from a family of Polish Jewish Holocaust survivors
[6:25]My bubby Zelda named say to my eldest daughter did not fight in the resistance
[6:29]But her successful but tragic escape story shaped my understanding of survival
[6:33]She who did not look Jewish with her high cheekbones and pinch nose
[6:36]fled occupied Warsaw
[6:37]swam across rivers hid in a convent flirted with a Nazi who turned a blind eye
[6:42]And was transported in a truck carrying oranges eastward finally stealing
[6:45]Across the Russian border where her life was saved ironically by being forced into Siberian war camps
[6:50]My bubby was strong as an ox, but she'd lost her parents
[6:53]And three of her four sisters all of whom had remained in Warsaw
[6:57]She'd relay this dreadful story to me every single afternoon as she babysat me after school
[7:01]Tears and fury in her eyes
[7:03]Oh
[7:05]And that's a lot that's just a lot and obviously you've given more color to this little excerpt
[7:10]But you've taken your whole family history and whatever gets transmitted they're in
[7:15]And then you fast forward and you're in London as like a stand-up comic
[7:20]Great of newly doing with your own identity as like what you called sort of being out as a Jew
[7:27]Which in London you felt like wasn't really
[7:30]Okay, tell me about that because that's something that I found very surprising also
[7:33]Well, first of all, this is a long time ago. I need a long time ago. It's about 15 years ago
[7:38]So things I think might be different. It wasn't that it well
[7:42]I felt very self-conscious. I very I was very much an American Jew on stage by the way
[7:48]I'm Canadian, but that didn't matter
[7:51]Same Canadian, you know, people would refer to me as like the female Woody Allen
[7:57]I think because of my glasses and my look
[8:01]You know, that was I was very I was presented as a Jew
[8:05]I was taken as a Jew
[8:06]I was received as one and because I had grown up in this not just Holocaust survivor family
[8:12]I grew up in a Holocaust survivor community in Montreal
[8:16]I went to a Jewish day school
[8:18]I went to
[8:20]You know college on the east coast and Ivy League. I mean, I grew up in very Jewish
[8:26]Melias where it was not a thing even being from a Holocaust survivor family was not unique my whole community was like that
[8:34]So suddenly in London I found myself in a different context where
[8:40]Being Jewish was different being an American Jew or at seeming like an American Jew was different
[8:47]And not suddenly making very self-conscious about that. Wow
[8:51]And then you dove deep into the research because you're also like a brilliant academic
[8:56]Wonderkind essentially and you started looking for more stories in the library of
[9:02]Toish women warriors and uncovered this like treasure trove of stories and that's
[9:08]Part of how this book came to be right or maybe you should just tell it
[9:13]Well first I roll my eyes and wonderkind and
[9:18]I'm aware of a rice call myself a career slut because I'm all over the place
[9:24]I've worked in lots of different ways and lots of different things. Yes, I found this book
[9:28]Completely I accident. I was doing research on strong Jewish women
[9:33]There's one woman who stood out in my mind because I studied her in fifth grade
[9:37]Her name was Connor Senish for those who hadn't heard of her
[9:41]She lived in what was in Palestine and she joined the British army. She was a power trooper
[9:46]She went back to her native Hungary. She was a young Jewish woman
[9:50]She was caught
[9:52]But she looked the Nazis in the eye when they shot her and this was stayed with me
[9:57]And this was she became the sim
[10:00]of Jewish female bravado.
[10:03]But I wanted to find out like who was she?
[10:05]So I kind of have heroic narrative
[10:07]that I grew up with at Jewish day school,
[10:09]and she was amazing, but who was she?
[10:11]Who was this person who defied the Nazis like that?
[10:15]Why one of millions, like who was she?
[10:18]What was her psychology?
[10:20]So we went to the British library
[10:21]because I was living in London and looked her up.
[10:23]And there were not that many books about Thomas Senish.
[10:26]So I just ordered whatever they had.
[10:28]It was like on a catalog
[10:29]and then you had to go up to a desk and get your books.
[10:31]And I got my little stack.
[10:33]And one of them was like this really old book.
[10:35]And like a warm blue fabric with the yellowing edges
[10:38]and that smell of that yellowing smell on us.
[10:42]And it had gold memory and they opened it up.
[10:44]And it's 200 pages of like tiny script in Yiddish.
[10:49]But the crazy part is I happen to speak Yiddish.
[10:53]So I'm actually able to read this,
[10:55]but now I was gonna put it aside
[10:57]because it looked so hard.
[10:58]I mean like tiny script.
[11:00]I was living in London.
[11:01]I was working in stand-up in academia in the art world.
[11:04]Like I wasn't using Yiddish.
[11:06]It was my Yiddish was rusty.
[11:08]So this look like this look hard.
[11:11]But the like academic in me was like, no, no,
[11:13]look at everything, look at everything.
[11:15]So I started flipping through this book
[11:17]looking for Thomas Senish.
[11:19]She's not there.
[11:20]She's in the last 10 pages in front of her.
[11:23]There was like 180, 190 pages of other Jewish women
[11:27]with pictures with these little brief bios
[11:31]or kind of snippets.
[11:32]And the chapter titles are like owed to weapons
[11:36]and guns and ammunition.
[11:38]I should say, I forgot to mention the title of the book
[11:40]was in Yiddish, Foyan Indighettos,
[11:43]which is women in the ghettos.
[11:45]So I had come to it expecting the kind of Holocaust story
[11:49]that I'd grown up with that was obviously
[11:52]going to be difficult and sad and tragic and traumatic.
[11:55]And it said it was like about guns and bullets
[11:59]and ammunition and fighting.
[12:02]And it was just so, so shocking to me.
[12:06]Is this was not the story that I knew at all?
[12:10]And you even say in the book that it was so obvious to people
[12:13]at the time that the women were going to go down
[12:16]in history for what they did.
[12:17]It was like taken for granted and yet the narrative
[12:20]of the Holocaust is evolved in such a way
[12:22]that actually uses something like there's such resistance
[12:26]to resistance for whatever reason.
[12:28]People don't want to discuss or share.
[12:31]And so this whole piece of history has been lost.
[12:34]And I feel like the way you present it in the book,
[12:36]I was like sort of going along with you on this journey.
[12:39]And I was like, good, look at that.
[12:42]I mean, I feel like I'm like, as Jewish women also,
[12:45]like well, I'm glad that they all were trying so hard.
[12:48]Because from our point of view here in like 2021
[12:52]or whatever, it's like, oh my gosh,
[12:54]like they were, they had no shot.
[12:56]They like, there was no chance for them.
[12:58]Like they couldn't even have,
[12:59]but then look what they did.
[13:00]And it's just like something to marvel at.
[13:02]And of course, that's like the next couple hundred.
[13:05]It's like, your whole story like what they did.
[13:08]And it's just so amazing, right?
[13:10]It's so exciting.
[13:11]It's so exciting.
[13:13]It's so exciting.
[13:14]But like, you know, they didn't really have a shot.
[13:17]They didn't have a shot at beatings in German army.
[13:20]And they knew that.
[13:21]I mean, but they still thought them
[13:24]because it was so important to fight for justice
[13:28]and liberty and fairness.
[13:32]And they were angry and they were fueled by passion.
[13:38]And they were not going to just let this go.
[13:42]Don't you feel great that like you've like reunited
[13:44]with these ghost warriors in a way?
[13:46]Like that like they're all kind of like, you know,
[13:50]I mean, that sounds like ridiculous.
[13:51]I just feel like they're like, you know,
[13:53]you didn't know they were there.
[13:54]And then I was then there are the appearances
[13:56]of like all these women who had been wiped out.
[13:58]And now all of a sudden, like they like pop up
[14:01]in different forms.
[14:02]That sounded like ridiculous.
[14:03]But that's sort of like how it's popping up to me in my head,
[14:05]right?
[14:07]So some of the women survived.
[14:09]And they were, those became the main characters
[14:11]in my book because they left testimonies or memoirs
[14:15]or I had families or had material I could work with.
[14:18]And some of them did not survive.
[14:20]So some of them had friends who wrote eulogies
[14:23]or I worked with material that others had written about them.
[14:26]But sometimes those women that didn't survive,
[14:29]I feel like a granddaughter or something.
[14:31]I feel like, you know, it like makes me cry.
[14:34]I'm like talking to you now.
[14:35]I feel like right.
[14:36]Like I feel like, you know, they never,
[14:37]they didn't live.
[14:38]They couldn't have had a granddaughter.
[14:40]So I'm like trying to feel for whatever granddaughter,
[14:44]you know, from cups of nitska, never had.
[14:47]And I feel a great duty to these women,
[14:51]especially those that never came in those that told their stories,
[14:55]but hadn't been widely hard.
[14:57]And especially those that never got to tell their stories.
[14:59]I feel, yeah, I feel, you know, this project was one
[15:03]where I feel very excited.
[15:04]But it's always been one that felt a great duty, you know?
[15:08]There's also been kind of burden of I have to do this.
[15:12]Well, it's just so amazingly generous.
[15:16]Like it's just amazing.
[15:18]The gift you're giving to the world
[15:20]by all of your research and getting this out there.
[15:22]All of these souls who have like, you know, been extinguished.
[15:25]And even the people, you know,
[15:27]Rayna is that her name Rayna, Renya,
[15:29]who the memoirs that exist that are actually then buried,
[15:33]you know, even to just put a spotlight on them again
[15:37]is an act of goodness, if you will.
[15:39]So.
[15:40]Renya, my main character, her memoir
[15:43]was published in English in the US in 1947.
[15:47]It is, you can buy it.
[15:49]You can buy a collector, like, I bought these books,
[15:52]but the stories got drowned out for many reasons,
[15:56]which I get into at the end of the book.
[15:58]But, you know, it's, yeah, like it's in a way
[16:01]that's even more incredible that we did try
[16:04]to sell these stories, sell.
[16:05]They, you know, tell these stories early on,
[16:08]but the way that history ends up being constructed,
[16:12]the way our memories are shaped,
[16:14]the way our stories of who we are are shaped.
[16:17]Really, it's been, it's very interesting, really, you know,
[16:20]is shifts with times, shifts with politics.
[16:24]There are reasons why certain stories are remembered,
[16:26]certain aren't so.
[16:27]So I know, so this is still gonna be,
[16:30]I haven't even double checked this with you.
[16:31]Last time we spoke, this was going to be
[16:34]a film or TV adaptation.
[16:35]What's the latest on that?
[16:37]It has been auctioned for film,
[16:39]and we, I am, we're just starting to co-write
[16:42]a screen play and I'm working on it
[16:44]with a screenwriter.
[16:45]So it's like a very early day.
[16:47]So I, I'm like, don't have the,
[16:49]I can't tell you anything juicy,
[16:52]cause I don't know yet.
[16:54]But, you know, it's a long process.
[16:55]But, you know, where we are hoping,
[16:58]I mean, it's such a dramatic story.
[17:01]And it's also like, I keep saying it so much of the story
[17:05]is about the reason Jewish women were able
[17:08]to take on such an important role in the resistance.
[17:11]And in the underground,
[17:12]because they dress up.
[17:13]This is a story of costume.
[17:15]This is a story about fashion as well.
[17:18]This is a story about Jewish women pretending
[17:21]to be Catholic girls.
[17:23]And so it's very, it's, I mean,
[17:26]it's dramatic, it's filmmaking so many ways.
[17:28]So yes, here's hoping.
[17:31]So what I was gonna say, not that I have any
[17:33]expertise in this area at all,
[17:34]but like to me, I'm really drawn to your story, right?
[17:38]Cause I relate to your, I mean,
[17:40]your best friends with the really good friend of mine.
[17:42]So that alone.
[17:43]But like, just as another similarly aged Jewish woman
[17:47]in the world today, I love seeing like the images
[17:52]like that you had in your introduction even,
[17:54]like you in the library.
[17:56]Like, I'm wondering if you're gonna interweave
[17:58]your own story with the story
[18:00]or if it's just gonna all be like a flashback
[18:03]to that whole time.
[18:04]And it'll be like start to finish during that time
[18:06]or if you're gonna have it more like sort of a Julia
[18:08]and Julia where you have like Julia child
[18:11]and then Julia Powell on the kitchen
[18:12]and you know, more like that.
[18:14]Any thoughts?
[18:15]Yeah, so I should just say for readers.
[18:17]So in the book, the first chapter and the very last chapter
[18:21]are, they're told from my perspective about first,
[18:24]I'm setting up how this I came to this.
[18:26]And then at the end, I talk a bit about my journeys
[18:28]and my travels and researches.
[18:31]At the moment, no, the movie is going to be really set
[18:34]in the time and the idea is it's really trying to showcase
[18:38]this incredible Jewish history.
[18:41]These incredible women and what they did
[18:43]and what they went through.
[18:45]But we could write another movie about how that might story.
[18:48]So let's talk like, you know, like in Titanic.
[18:53]I just like, it doesn't have to be the main area,
[18:55]but like in Titanic when you're like in present day,
[18:58]right, on the ship.
[18:59]And then you go into the whole story,
[19:01]but you kind of know that your head
[19:03]that you're linked to someone in the present,
[19:04]in the movie, who you're also kind of rooting for.
[19:07]I don't know.
[19:07]So we have talked about that moment.
[19:10]That's not how, but it's like so early.
[19:13]Like, you know, these things goes as you can be able
[19:15]through so many changes and drops and things.
[19:18]So we'll see.
[19:19]Now I have a vote.
[19:20]I have your input.
[19:21]I can bring it.
[19:23]Oh my gosh.
[19:24]So how long did this whole project take you?
[19:26]I mean, this is a massive undertaking.
[19:28]And I have to say, I did not get all the way to the end,
[19:30]but there are like 50 pages of notes.
[19:32]But it was, what is it like 450 pages, but it's amazing.
[19:36]And the way you write, even the way you start your chapters,
[19:38]right, you had some chapter,
[19:40]wait, I just wanted to find this opening sentence.
[19:42]No, not this one.
[19:43]See, I don't even know why I try.
[19:45]Anyway, it was really good.
[19:47]Oh here, rumors flew like shots.
[19:49]That's such a great opening sentence for a chapter.
[19:51]I feel like you can tell a lot from the first sentence
[19:53]of every chapter, right?
[19:54]Is it gonna draw you in like what does it say?
[19:56]How is it written?
[19:57]And it's like, what, what's going on?
[19:59]What rumors?
[20:00]That's, you know, I don't know.
[20:01]I just love your style of writing.
[20:03]That was just one little example.
[20:04]Thank you very, very much.
[20:06]That really means a lot to me as a writer first.
[20:10]I always feel like, so thank you.
[20:13]What was the question?
[20:14]Tell me how long it took the whole process.
[20:16]Oh, how long did that take?
[20:18]So this project, I found that Yiddish book
[20:20]by accident 14 years ago.
[20:23]Oh my gosh.
[20:23]But as I said, there's always been ambivalence
[20:28]like this, especially at the beginning.
[20:29]And I found this book.
[20:30]I was 30 years old.
[20:31]I was single.
[20:32]I was living in London.
[20:33]I was finding myself like the last thing I wanted to do
[20:38]was spend my days in 1943 in the Holocaust.
[20:41]If anything, I was living in London
[20:43]because I skate my family
[20:44]and didn't want to deal with the Holocaust.
[20:47]So, you know, as I said, there was a sense of duty
[20:50]about this project and at times excitement,
[20:53]but also at times like, oh, this is hard.
[20:57]Emotionally, intellectually, practically,
[21:00]this is a very hard project.
[21:02]So anyways, I've worked on many other things
[21:05]during that time.
[21:06]I've written other books.
[21:07]I've done many other projects.
[21:09]But from that get go, but I knew,
[21:11]like I couldn't let it go all this time.
[21:13]I couldn't let it go.
[21:14]So I immediately applied for translation grants
[21:18]because it was Yiddish book.
[21:19]And I said, I knew, I had to translate this.
[21:22]I got grants.
[21:23]I was supposed to do it in a year.
[21:25]It dragged on for like five, seven years.
[21:27]And I'm a very organized person,
[21:29]but this was the one thing in my life
[21:31]I couldn't finish.
[21:34]I couldn't really fully get to.
[21:36]I wasn't ready.
[21:38]I wasn't ready to go there.
[21:40]And these are really hard stories.
[21:44]And it took until,
[21:45]and then I was gonna publish this as an academic piece.
[21:49]And then I was gonna collaborate with an academic
[21:52]who was gonna write extensive footnotes,
[21:55]explaining that Yiddish tax, which has no contacts whatsoever.
[21:59]And then I didn't know, and then,
[22:03]and then Trump got elected.
[22:06]And around this time, there was these books
[22:08]like hidden figures and code girls.
[22:10]And there was around 2016, 2017.
[22:14]There's something that's a lot more of women's interest.
[22:17]And so what happened was there was interest
[22:20]in these hidden women's stories.
[22:21]And I started thinking about writing this as a novel,
[22:25]because I thought that would be easier
[22:27]than having to track down the,
[22:29]I didn't know any, I mean, this is hard to research.
[22:33]So writing it as fiction would kind of get me off
[22:35]the research hook to some degree.
[22:38]So I started writing it as a novel.
[22:40]And then there was the big first women's march.
[22:43]And a few days after that,
[22:45]I happened to meet my agent,
[22:46]my literary agent for breakfast.
[22:48]And this is, I never totally went short.
[22:50]And I mentioned to her, we met about something different.
[22:53]But I mentioned to her that I was writing this novel
[22:56]based on this Yiddish book that I found
[22:58]that I was gonna do as an academic book.
[23:00]And she like stopped me in the restaurant.
[23:03]I was like, wait a second.
[23:05]Jewish women were blowing up Nazi trains.
[23:10]And I was like, yeah, she's like,
[23:11]this really happened.
[23:13]I said, yeah, this really happened.
[23:15]But I'm, and she was like, no, no, no, Judy.
[23:17]You have to do this as a nonfiction project
[23:20]because you have to tell the truth of this story.
[23:23]It's very important to do that.
[23:26]And I was like, oh, okay.
[23:29]So then I went up and she said, Judy,
[23:32]write me a proposal.
[23:33]Just do a short proposal and we'll work on it from there.
[23:36]And for six months, I wrote a comic novel.
[23:39]I wrote a, I still couldn't commit to this.
[23:44]And then once I done that and like put it in a drawer,
[23:47]then I like quickly wrote a proposal for this.
[23:50]And it like, it sold very quick.
[23:52]I mean, the whole thing then happened very quickly.
[23:55]But it was like, I stalled.
[23:56]Like some of the reason this took so long
[23:58]is I personally, I wasn't ready.
[24:01]I wasn't ready emotionally to do this.
[24:03]And it was very hard.
[24:05]It was, it's a very, I had to travel the world.
[24:07]I'm working with, you know, hundreds of testimonies
[24:11]and documents in Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew, German, Russian.
[24:15]I had to hire a number of translator.
[24:18]I was like running a cottage industry around like,
[24:21]just the source documents.
[24:24]I speak Hebrew and Yiddish,
[24:25]but I still needed some help.
[24:27]I don't speak Polish at all.
[24:29]Sorry, I'm going on a little bit, but you,
[24:31]no, I'm fascinated.
[24:33]It took a really, it took a lot of people.
[24:35]It took a long time to ring this together.
[24:38]And yeah, it took me a long time
[24:40]to be at a place where I was ready to do this.
[24:42]Wow.
[24:43]It was also, you know, there's no book out there
[24:46]about Jewish resistance in Poland at all.
[24:50]So it's not like I, there's a book about Jewish resistance,
[24:53]a history, and then I'm going to tell the women
[24:55]inside of the story that there's no book about,
[24:59]there are books about specific people.
[25:01]There are books about Vilna or Kovna or Warsaw,
[25:06]but there is no English or even like book,
[25:09]a broad book about Jewish resistance in Poland.
[25:12]So I had to put together the crinot like six months,
[25:15]I spent making a timeline like you're in like second grade
[25:19]when you're, I was like, okay, this happened.
[25:21]And then oh, this happened then.
[25:23]Oh, this story because I was working for memoirs.
[25:27]So I'm taking people's personal stories,
[25:29]which by the way are filled with inconsistencies
[25:31]and mistakes and even things that didn't want to say
[25:35]because it was during the war,
[25:37]this was about the underground or secrets.
[25:40]So I had to work with all these very, you know,
[25:43]semi-reliable sources and create a reliable historical narrative.
[25:48]So that was very, very complicated.
[25:50]Okay, I'm going to stop talking.
[25:52]I find this whole thing fascinating
[25:55]because this is not how like a typical,
[25:58]isn't it crazy that like two books,
[26:00]like I could grab any other random book, right?
[26:02]And this is just like someone sat down
[26:04]and that was in their head
[26:05]and they just drafted it and it was all made up, right?
[26:08]Like fiction, it's not to say it's not a lot of work fiction.
[26:11]It's a tremendous amount of work in the craftable.
[26:13]Well, I'm just saying like something can come completely
[26:15]out of your head and you can funnel it onto the page.
[26:17]And then something else can be like all of those people
[26:21]working on it and documents.
[26:23]And yet when you're holding them,
[26:24]they're just like two, you know what I mean?
[26:26]Like you wouldn't know.
[26:27]There should, I feel like there should be better markings
[26:30]like a better way to tell books.
[26:33]I mean, I know the covers say a lot,
[26:35]like something like, I don't know, some marking,
[26:37]like I don't know, some system
[26:40]because they look so similar,
[26:41]but they're so different.
[26:43]Like even where do you go in this book?
[26:44]Like you should open it up and they'll be like,
[26:46]you know, little pictures of like,
[26:48]here's where you're gonna travel like, you know,
[26:51]never mind.
[26:52]Anyway, now I'm rambling.
[26:53]I'll just say I'm super impressed
[26:54]with all the work and research that it took.
[26:56]And I'm delighted that you did it.
[26:58]It's like a mitzvah to the Jewish people
[27:00]and to everyone because everybody has lived through this
[27:03]in some way, shape, perform this part of history.
[27:05]And it's really remarkable.
[27:08]So I'm going back to Wonderkin.
[27:09]Sorry, I'm just gonna keep it on the table.
[27:12]So I know you've done like a million other things as well.
[27:16]And I read, by the way, part of your memoir,
[27:17]which I didn't even talk about white walls
[27:19]and that's like a whole nother podcast we could have.
[27:22]What are you going to do next?
[27:24]Like what's this is finally coming out?
[27:26]Like are you done now with all sorts of writing
[27:29]or are you going back to comedy?
[27:30]Like what's your thinking?
[27:32]Yeah, I definitely, I mean, I don't think I'm always saying,
[27:36]I'm done with writing, I'm done with writing.
[27:38]And then like the next day, I have like 25 ideas there.
[27:41]I definitely cannot work on something this difficult
[27:46]emotionally for a while.
[27:48]I've come, you know, there's so many things I've found.
[27:50]I'm like, I could write about, like I've seen before.
[27:52]This is the Soviet Jews and this and I actually can't.
[27:55]No, I have to write humor right now.
[27:57]So my next projects are gonna be,
[28:00]I hope a humorous novel.
[28:02]I need, I need a breather for a minute.
[28:03]That's okay.
[28:04]You know, I have friends work in like social work
[28:07]and amazing, you know, innovative and caring
[28:11]and difficult aid work.
[28:13]And I'll also ask them how do they deal with it.
[28:17]And often they have, they actually have professional help.
[28:21]They work as part of organizations.
[28:22]They're like therapists and social workers
[28:25]and they have colleagues.
[28:27]And this was like me by myself reading a lot
[28:30]of traumatic material.
[28:32]Yeah, as what we said before, it was very, is very taxing.
[28:36]So yes, I am, I'm not doing this again for some time.
[28:41]I say, I'll probably do that, but I need to do this.
[28:45]Okay, sounds good.
[28:47]Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
[28:50]I have, I'm one of those people
[28:53]of like every bit of advice.
[28:54]I'll find the opposite advice.
[28:56]But I, you know, something for me
[28:58]that I really, really need external deadlines.
[29:04]I am not someone that can, you know,
[29:06]friends are like, oh, I went to, before the pandemic,
[29:08]I went to London for a week and I walked myself
[29:11]in an Airbnb and I just wrote this,
[29:13]I like, I don't work that way.
[29:16]I need to know that something is due
[29:19]to somebody else on a certain day.
[29:23]And so I create those external deadlines for myself.
[29:26]And I recommend that to people that need that.
[29:30]Like, I even call my age recently.
[29:32]I was like, set me a deadline for this other book.
[29:34]I'm like, I need, so she's like, okay.
[29:37]And she's like, okay, 40 pages by April 1st.
[29:40]I was like, okay, 40 pages, April 1st.
[29:42]Like, I need that sense of the external
[29:46]to motivate me to do it.
[29:49]And what, so what's your advice?
[29:51]If that's a kind, if that, you know,
[29:53]do that for yourself, if that helps.
[29:56]I think it can help cast away doubt.
[29:58]I think for me, it's the doubt.
[30:00]So if I know that something is coming up,
[30:02]I just have to do it.
[30:04]So I can't think about it.
[30:05]And I think that's a big part of it.
[30:09]So try to set yourself deadlines.
[30:11]And even if it's like you're gonna give it to your partner
[30:15]or friend to read, even if you don't even give it to them,
[30:18]just to hold you accountable to a certain deadline,
[30:20]I think can be very helpful for some people.
[30:23]I love that.
[30:24]Let me know, I'm the same way.
[30:25]I make artificial deadlines
[30:27]before my real deadlines.
[30:29]And then I stress out about those deadlines
[30:31]because I'm like, I have to get it done
[30:33]at least a week before.
[30:33]And then it comes like a week before.
[30:35]And I'm like, oh my gosh, well, I should really be
[30:36]that deadline too.
[30:38]It's so, these mind games I played,
[30:40]but I put it like in my calendar,
[30:42]like, you know, something just came up and I'm like,
[30:43]oh, I did that like three weeks ago, you know.
[30:46]But I had to put it in so that I would do it today,
[30:49]even though I had like three weeks to do it.
[30:51]So I get it.
[30:52]I know my husband is crazy.
[30:53]And he thinks it's something to do with having to have anxiety
[30:57]to produce something and create my own anxiety.
[31:01]And you know, he's been married to right now
[31:03]for enough time that he's like, okay.
[31:06]But I, yeah, it's something,
[31:07]I think I can't, I don't know.
[31:10]I think some people can write in pleasure
[31:12]for something I can't.
[31:14]No, I need to have, I need some structure.
[31:16]I don't know.
[31:17]It's some sort of like lingering school-based mentality
[31:20]after like you go through school and graduate school
[31:22]and like all this stuff.
[31:23]Like what now all of a sudden,
[31:24]nothing's ever do.
[31:26]Like, are you kidding me?
[31:27]Come on, what does it do?
[31:28]What's the thing?
[31:29]So, yeah, that's how I am.
[31:30]Maybe our husbands can like go talk about, you know,
[31:34]what it's like to be married to somebody
[31:35]completely neurotic and whatever, but anyway.
[31:37]Oh, and I forgot to mention,
[31:38]I'm sorry, your young readers edition of this also
[31:41]is coming out.
[31:42]Is it the same time exactly or?
[31:44]Coming out at the same time.
[31:46]And yeah, it's intended for ages like over age 10 to 14
[31:51]plus I worked with someone who specializes in that age range
[31:56]that we collaborated on this.
[31:58]And yeah, I'm actually really excited about that.
[32:01]And, you know, it's really feels, you know,
[32:03]it feels important for me to share this story
[32:06]not just with grown-ups, but with young Jewish women
[32:10]because most of the characters in my book were teenagers.
[32:13]These women rebelling against the Nazis,
[32:15]the oldest one was 25 and that was like the old leader.
[32:19]These were, my main character was 15 when the war began.
[32:23]So these were teenage early 20s,
[32:26]Jews fighting the Nazis.
[32:29]So yes, I've found that young readers
[32:32]really connect with the material in a very different way,
[32:36]but it's very exciting.
[32:37]And while my daughter, my daughter's like 13
[32:40]and is like, can you make me a smoothie?
[32:41]I'm like, it's right here.
[32:42]You know, and now they're like people in Poland,
[32:45]like organizing entire resistance movements.
[32:47]It's like, could you bring me up some water?
[32:49]And I'm like, really?
[32:51]Anyway, all right.
[32:53]Well, Judy, it was so fun talking to you,
[32:55]even though, I mean, fun is maybe the wrong word.
[32:58]It's always fun being with you.
[32:59]It was moving and invigorating and spiritual
[33:03]and soulful discussing the topic at hand as well.
[33:06]And yeah, I'm glad it's finally coming out into the world.
[33:09]And maybe this is just the time it's meant to,
[33:11]this is the way it was meant to be.
[33:12]I don't know.
[33:13]So congratulations.
[33:14]You're so much for asking great questions
[33:17]and probing and paying attention
[33:20]and being so supportive of this.
[33:22]Thank you.
[33:22]Of course.
[33:23]All right.
[33:24]Well, next time in person.
[33:26]I pray.
[33:27]All right.
[33:28]Bye, Judy.
[33:30]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[33:33]to Read Books.
[33:34]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at Zebioans
[33:37]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[33:39]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com
[33:41]and sign up for my virtual book club
[33:43]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[33:46]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[33:48]for the Sound Editing.
[33:50]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[33:51]for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.