Press on Renata, A Child of the Holocaust

November 1st, 2015 • Interview with The Daily North Shore

November 6th, 2015 • Interview with The Chicago Tribune

November 11th, 2015 • Interview with The Glencoe Anchor (for non-subscribers, see full article below)

Glencoe author captures story of an escape from Nazi Germany

Image 1: Helen Behr (left) and daughter Susan Koehler, of Glencoe, worked together to publish Behr’s 20-year-old manuscript for a story chronicling Renata Haberer and her family’s escape from Nazi Germany. Image 2: Renata Strauss nee Haberer, pictured in front of her Highland Park home, is the subject of Glencoe resident Helen Behr’s book, “Renata, A Child of the Holocaust: A Novel Based on the Life of Renata Haberer.” Photos Submitted.

Fouad Egbaria, Editor
9:26 am CST November 11, 2015

Helen Behr finished writing a book 20 years ago — for a while, the manuscript sat there. Two decades later, Behr, 87, a longtime Glencoe resident, self-published her book, “Renata, A Child of the Holocaust: A Novel Based on the Life of Renata Haberer,” a book of historical fiction based on the life of Highland Park resident Renata Strauss nee Haberer, more commonly known as Renee. Behr’s daughter, Susan Koehler, also a Glencoe resident, helped her throughout the writing process for the work, which was released Sept. 22. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Simon Wiesenthal Center in the memory of Strauss and her family. 

The book chronicles Strauss’s childhood in Nazi Germany, and her flight to the Swiss border, separated from her family, after Kristallnacht. Despite the story’s heavy historical material, Behr’s telling is geared toward younger readers, ages 10 and up. This comes as no surprise, as Behr was formerly a teacher at Greeley School in Winnetka for many years.  

About 20 years ago, she was sitting at a Seder with Strauss — who called herself Renee upon coming to America — and she started telling Behr the story of her escape from Nazi Germany when she was 9, along with her 5-year-old sister. “It just fascinated me,” Behr said. “So when I knew her a little better, I asked how she would feel if I would write a novel about her experience.” She sat down with Strauss over a period of time, interviewing her and doing research in Holocaust libraries, learning about pre-Hitler Germany (Strauss was born in 1933, when Hitler was elected chancellor). The account is based on Strauss’s experience, albeit the dialogue and other elements of the story are fictionalized. Strauss passed away in January 2014, at age 81 — but Behr said Strauss told her she got the story right. “She said ‘Oh you really got it, you really got it,’” Behr said. “Her family feels the same way. ... She wanted me to use her name. Originally I hadn’t planned on using her name.” 

Unfortunately, 20 years ago Behr and Strauss tried to get the book published, but didn’t have any luck. When Strauss became sick, Koehler said she visited her in the hopsital and promised her they would get the book published. “I swear I saw a flicker or something in her eye,” Koehler said. “I said “We’re gonna do this.’” As a result, with Koehler working as her mother’s editor and publicist, they went through the process of self-publishing the book, which is available in paperback on Amazon, as well as Kindle. 

After 20 years of sitting on the manuscript, naturally Behr tinkered with parts of the story, as she and her daughter devoted hours each day to perfecting the book. “We worked all summer every day,” Behr said. “We saw each other in a different light, which was really nice.”The mother-daughter relationship took a different form, as they collaborated as literary associates. “She’s my editor, my publicist,” Behr said, smiling. The book, which is 100 pages long (excluding several pages of black-and-white photographs of Strauss and her family), is dedicated to “all the children of the Holocaust.” 

Behr’s love for the craft of writing started at an early age. When she was 8, she won a writing contest, the grand prize being a Dionne quintuplet doll. (The prompt asked the young writers what they would name the Dionne quintuplets — born in 1934, the first quintuplets known to have survived infancy — and why.) She also wrote in her school newspaper and said she excelled in English classes as a young student. Setting up the story was the hardest part, Behr said, and she split the first chapter into two after revisiting the story. But once the story arrives to the tragic night of Kristallnacht, she said, she just “flew” in her writing. But through the revisions and copy editing and reading and re-reading, she found the process rewarding, especially for the time spent with her daughter. “We’ve always been very close,” Behr said. “We always have been good friends. But this established a whole other dimension for our relationship.” She joked that she writes fast and hates to proofread, which is here Koehler and other family members helped out (Behr’s daughter-in-law is a professional proofreader). After all of the hard work, Behr got the thrill all writers get when they see their name in print. She isn’t done writing, either, as she said she has other unpublished manuscripts that she might revisit. 

“I never expected to be that thrilled,” she said. “When I saw the book, with my name on it, I was really ecstatic. It was just such a positive feeling. I really didn’t expect it.” 

Finally, a way to teach the holocaust before high school

By an English Teacher on November 27, 2015
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

I am a sixth grade English teacher and I've been searching for the right novel to teach the holocaust to my students. Behr's Renata is brilliant. The greats: Weisel's Night, Spiegelman's Maus, and Anne Frank's diary are obviously terrific, but my sixth graders aren't ready for them. The parents and administration voice objections not to novels pertaining to the holocaust specifically, but oppose exposing today's 11 year olds to death, and blood, and carnage, and murder. Thus the middle school classroom has become this cleansed version of what it used to be--I teach a "literature-lite" curriculum rife with adventure novels, as long as they aren't too dangerous, passionate love poems, as long as the writing isn't too revealing, and non-fiction excerpts, as long as the pieces aren't too honest. Of course the inverse is happening at home, while the classroom becomes more and more censored, the video games and movies these children are consuming outside of school pollute their young minds with more sex and violence than I would ever expose them to in a classic novel. I digress.

Behr's novel allows the teacher to teach the holocaust, its horrors and nightmares, without stepping the bounds of contemporary society's rules. Renata accomplishes this feat cleverly, not by diluting or changing the events and experiences, but by viewing the holocaust through the lenses of a young child, Renata. Renata's vantage point is one of naiveté and innocence, she is not yet wise to ways of the world or to man's capacity for evil. Thus, this is the perfect novel to introduce the holocaust to children. !!SPOILER ALERT!!: none of the main characters die. They do experience the death trains and the death camps, they do lose complete control of their lives, they are separated from their family, and Renata does spend many of her formidable and impressionable years completely on her own. Hitler's evil is still very much there.

In addition to the holocaust setting, the novel is a complete one. The main character, Renata, is perfectly flawed and changes and grows throughout the story. Behr eloquently captures the wonderment and anxiety that must have existed in any young child who had to suffer from her picturesque world being torn out from beneath her feet. I am sure that my students will be able to relate to Renata's character on an almost personal level. One scene in particular, Renata and her mother embracing on what they thought would be their last night together, brought me to tears. Behr even captures some of the German soldiers performing humanizing and merciful actions. The plot moves quickly and is easy to follow (which will certainly captivate and hold the attention of young readers), and the climax is a nail-biting scene of Renata escaping into Switzerland on a dark and dangerous night.

I am so excited to have found a novel that I will be able to incorporate into my curriculum, to allow my students to wade into the shallow end of the holocaust before being tossed into the deep end once in high school. I recommend this book to anyone, though. It is beautifully wrought, and an honest account of one of the darkest periods of the 20th century.