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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1988
DETECTS IOUNDAlION
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with an American volunteer
after the conflict and finally
settled in California.
For several years, Jurman
has been speaking to youth
groups and in schools and col--
leges about her experiences
during the war. "I tell them:
`A very tragic page of history
was written for my genera-
tion. There is an empty page
alongside it. I hope you write
your page with justice and
love and understanding."
Frequently asked by
students why she did not
remove her Nazi-issued Star
of David before she went into
hiding, she replies that she
wore the Star "with pride. It
is something King David
wore on his shield. I would
not let Hitler turn it into an
emblem of disgrace!'
Although 95 percent of the
youngsters to whom Jurman
speaks are non-Jews, to
Jewish youth she emphasizes
the importance of feeling
secure in their Jewish identi-
ty.
"I could survive because I
knew who I was;" she tells
them. "When this crazy
Hitler murderer came along
and told me I was subhuman,
I did not believe him."
Jurman said the reaction of
children and their parents to
her story is a major reason
she, Jurman, wrote Alicia.
"The children identify with
Alicia," she said. "It's most
amazing. They go home and
tell their parents what I said
and they wish they had also
heard me!'
At the outset of her talk to
children, Jurman says, "You
have heard of the Six Million.
I will tell you of one family;'
Jurman's family, which lost
80 close relatives in the
Holocaust. She now has only
some distant cousins alive.
Afterwards, some children
hug her and some cry. Some
write to her. Although most
say they admire her courage,
she does not consider herself
a heroine.
"No, no;' she said, "I con-
sider myself to be someone
who had a very strong sense
of commitment. I am always
afraid, but I do what I set out
to do. I didn't claim to be a
heroine. I wanted the people
in the book to be the heroes!'
Jews emerged from the
Holocaust with their
numbers severely eroded, but
their integrity, according to
Jurman, intact. Never in
history, she said, "has the
human spirit been so vic-
torious as the Jews' after the
Shoah. After the war, so
many went to take revenge;
Jews went [to [Palestine] to
build!'
Jurman compared the
generation that suffered the
Hoiccaust to the Jews who
left Egypt in the Exodus and
were event-041 ly forbidden
from entering ti Promised
Land. — -
"The generation that can-iG
out of the Holocaust;' she
said, "suffered from silence."
The generation that is
emerging now is learning
from the Holocaust, from the
broad experience and from
Alicia's mother
saved her by
throwing herself in
front of her
14-year-old
daughter as an SS
man shot his pistol
at her from point-
blank range.
the specific examples of the
"children in the ghettos who
observed the Ten Command-
ments and helped their
parents to the very end." Of
those who contend that the
Holocaust "competes" with
religion, especially via the
fund-raising efforts of such in-
stitutions as the Simon
Wiesenthal Center, Jurman
countered, "The Holocaust is
religion!'
Jurman started writing
Alicia in 1982. It took three
years. During that time, she
said, "I relived everything
that happened to me. Now, it
is difficult for me to let go
again [of my murdered fami-
ly and friends]."
Although Jurman had writ-
ten many stories for children
before she wrote Alicia, she
had never before been pub-
_ lished or written a full-length
book. Since finishing Alicia,
she has taken a creative
writing course at Fullerton
College near her home in
Orange County. A short story
she wrote about the
Holocaust, "A Cry in the
Night," won first-prize in a
college writing contest. With
her $75 prize money, she took
her writing classmates out for
pizza.
Few survivors, she said,
have been able to talk about
their Holocaust experiences
because of the attendant
trauma. Her own survival,
she said, is "a mystery" to
her.
"But my mother believed I
would survive. I believed I
would survive. Maybe an
angel guided me. So many of
us survivors feel so much
guilt because we survived
when others did not. I know
that if had not survived, no
one would have taken my
place:' ❑