'A Chance at Freedom:' Author Recalls Grandmother's Courage

Welcome back. A story that mirrors what's happening in the world today. That's what the author says about the story of her late grandmother. Gary Spieler recounts her life in the early, the life of her grandmother in the early 1900s and how her courage saved her family's bloodline. It's based on my maternal grandmother's journey, her life and what really happened to her when she left Poland at the turn of the century. Her name was Regina Anisevich. She was one of six. She and her sister witnessed a pogrom. Pogrom is a Russian word for a violent raid. And they saw this pogrom that actually happened in Bialystok in 1906. And that heightened her sensitivity greatly to anything anti-Semitic. At the turn of the century, there was a lot of violence going on in Eastern Europe, not just for Jews, but for others. And so there was a big influx of immigration long before World War II. And so she left her entire family. Her husband took her baby and traveled thousands of miles away because of the fear that she felt was rising and coming and said, I can't raise my child in this environment. And no one else would believe her. Her family said, no, it's fine. Everything's going to be fine. Her friends say, you can't do this. She said, it's not going to be fine. And of course, had she not done that, you and I would not be having this conversation. She would have probably perished like her siblings did in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and in the Warsaw ghetto. But she left. She stopped in Paris. She met another man and got married. They came to Chicago together and had three other children, one of them being my mother. So she had a little boy and three girls and she was living in Chicago. She didn't have any skills, really. She was a translator in Poland, but her English wasn't good enough to be a translator in the United States. And grandpa abandoned her, left her alone with four little kids in the freezing Chicago winters. So my grandmother, being who she was, said, well, if I have to be cold, if I have to be poor, I don't have to also be cold. And she went to Los Angeles. And that's where she ended up. I want to know more about why you wanted to share this story of your grandma. Now that you tell me the story, it seems a little bit obvious. But, you know, still tell me about how this idea came about and why you wanted to put this into a book. Right. Well, certainly I've known this story my whole life. And so, like, you're exactly asking the question, why now? I'm a journalist. My first two books were nonfiction. I never thought of myself as a literary fiction writer, because fiction, you have to make stuff up. And that's hard. I think it was just the environment and me being at a point where I was ready to say, I need to tell this story, because when I tell people about my mother and how she grew up, you know, their eyes would go up and they say, well, that must have been horrible. And I said, no, it was horrible. It was a wonderful place. My mother felt so lucky to be there. And I think it was timing. Something in me just clicked and said, it's time to tell her story. And it seems very timely based on what's going on in our country today. And yeah, let's talk about that, because I also saw that you wrote the story is not just for that reason, but also it is a potent reminder of what immigrants endure for a chance at freedom and survival. So tell me about this reminder as well. And just go in a bit more detail, if you will, of what makes her experience now so relevant today. Yeah, I, you know, I look at her story and the immigrants that were fleeing violence and looking for a better life. And that's what I see in our country. People came here for a better life. They came here to also contribute. And so that sensitivity to me was very important. And there's so much discussion about immigrants in this country. And I'll say to people, well, who picked your strawberries this morning? You know, who are these people that are coming to the country? They're coming for a better life. My grandmother, who had very few skills, she had translating skills, that's all. But she came here to save her child and to save her children and to have a better life and her children grow up to contribute to this country. And so that confluence of immigration, racism, survival sort of set me on this path of telling her story and having other people relate to her story. And everyone I talk to shakes their head, yes, we understand that. So that's, I think, in answering your question, why it sort of came to fruition now. I like to ask this question, especially about books, if there is one message that you would like the reader to take away from reading this book, what would it be? Just what I said, believe in yourself, you know, for women and men. But this is a young woman who was up against a big patriarchy that said she didn't know what she was talking about, but she believed in what she saw and she took action. My grandmother was not a touchy-feely grandma, as I knew. She was a very tough cookie because she'd been through so much. I can imagine. One of the things you said, pay attention to what's going on in politics, Jerry, it can change your life and not for the good. Well, I think, yeah, that's a good addition to that. And I think what you said, the decision to believe in herself, highly consequential, as we can see today, also me speaking to you. So I really appreciate you sharing the story, also putting it down into a book. It sounds very fascinating. Thank you so much, Jerry Spieler, for coming on today. Thank you. Thank you for having me.