Discover a powerful, untold chapter of Holocaust history and a daughter’s enduring quest to know the story that began a generation before her birth. From childhood, Julie Brill struggled to understand how her father survived as a young Jewish boy in Belgrade, where Nazis murdered 90 percent of the Jewish population without gas chambers or cattle cars. Through exacting research, a bit of luck, and three emotional trips to Serbia, she pieces together her family’s lost past, unearths secrets, and returns to her father a small part of what the Nazis stole: his own family history.
For this presentation, Julie Brill will be in conversation with Karen Kirsten.
Julie Brill has written for Haaretz, the Forward, Kveller, The Times of Israel, Balkan Insight, and elsewhere. She shares her family’s experiences in the Holocaust in middle and high school classrooms through Living Links. With so few Jewish survivors and descendants from Serbia, the story of the Shoah there has gone largely untold. Julie’s quest to understand and share what she learned led to Hidden in Plain Sight: A Family Memoir and the Untold Story of the Holocaust in Serbia. Additionally, Julie is a lactation consultant, doula, childbirth educator, and the author of the anthology Round the Circle: Doulas Share Their Experiences. She is the mother of two adult daughters and lives near Boston. To learn more about Julie and to purchase her book, visit her website: www.JulieBrill.com.
Karen Kirsten is the author of Irena’s Gift, an Epic WWII Memoir of Sisters, Secrets, and Survival, a 2024 National Jewish Book Award finalist for Autobiography & Memoir, winner Zibby Awards for Best Family Drama & Best Story of Overcoming, and Australian Jewish Book Award finalist. Karen’s essay “Searching for the Nazi Who Saved My Mother’s Life” was selected by Narratively as one of their Best Ever stories and nominated for The Best American Essays. Her writing has also appeared in Salon.com, Huffington Post, The Week, The Jerusalem Post, Boston’s National Public Radio station, The Boston Herald, The Christian Post, The Sydney Morning Herald and more.