arts & entertainment

This still from author David Kurtz's vacation movie

shows Maurice Chandler (Moszek Tuchendler) — the

central figure in Three Minutes in Poland — in 1938

at age 13.

A Snippet In

1 •

Time

THREE

MINUTES
IN
POLAND

OISCOYEO106
fl LOST WORLD

D 1938

FILM

GLENN
KURTI

Author's discovery of a grandfather's vacation
movie, shot in prewar Poland, inspired a book and
much more.

I

Suzanne Chessler
Contributing Writer

G

lenn Kurtz, based in New York,
became familiar with the Jewish
community of Metro Detroit long
before being invited to participate in this
year's Jewish Book Fair.
As Kurtz did research for Three Minutes in

Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938
Family Film (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), he
connected with Holocaust survivors and
their families living in Michigan.
Meetings with those people took place in
their Oakland County homes and provided
information that entered into the history he
would reveal in his book, and now, in a local
talk.
His presentation will reference recent
travels to Nasielsk, a small town in Poland
that his grandparents visited during a 1938
European vacation between more well-
known tourist destinations. Glenn Kurtz
has been exploring that town and the later
horrors brought there by the Nazis ever since
finding home movies — shot on that trip by
his grandfather David Kurtz — in a musty
cardboard box at his parents' Florida home.
When Kurtz takes the podium at 1 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 9, at the Jewish Community
Center in West Bloomfield, he will be able to
tell about his work and recent trip to Poland
with some 50 people, including Metro
Detroiters, all united by the subject that dra-
matically impacted his life.
"Coming to Michigan is very exciting and
a tremendous honor because it's the home of
Maurice Chandler, the central figure in Three
Minutes in Poland, and his family," says Kurtz
in a phone conversation.
"It was one of the great experiences of
my life when Mr. Chandler's granddaugh-
ter [Marcy Rosen] happened to find my
grandfather's film online and recognized her
grandfather as a boy in that film.
"It still gives me shivers to remember that
moment when she sent me an email. I called
her about our families being connected by
this extraordinary and coincidental moment
[captured in the film some] 70 years earlier7

Author Glenn Kurtz

Kurtz's presentation will cover his meet-
ings with the Chandler family as they opened
up to the film and spurred him to drop
another writing project to develop the town's
history and tell about the survivors and those
who were lost.
"This book is a gift to all of us," says
Evelyn Rosen, who is Chandler's daughter
and Marcy Rosen's mother.
Kurtz, 52, who has taught at Interlochen
Center for the Arts, will be introducing
his second book. The first, Practicing A
Musician's Return to Music, tells about his
experiences trying to succeed as a classical
guitarist.
"In my 20s, it became clear that the career
I had dreamed of was not going to come
true," says Kurtz, who studied at the New
England Conservatory of Music. "I quit, and
it was terribly traumatic.
"The only other thing that had been a
lifelong interest was reading so I looked at
graduate schools and the art of literature.
I got a Ph.D. in comparative literature and
German studies at Stanford7
Before beginning Practicing, he taught in
the media studies program at San Francisco
State University.
"It was in the course of writing that first

book and re-encoun-
tering my former life
that I started to think
of myself as a writer,"
he says. "I have a tal-
Another still shows the children of the small Polish
mudic disposition; I like
town of Nasielsk before the Nazis took hold.
reading and interpreting,
and in that sense, I feel
very connected to the cultural traditions of
affected by the Holocaust, I thought there
Judaism.
has to be something else to our visit, not just
"Doing the research for the second book
mourning the past but taking stock of where
was devastating emotionally. Of the 3,000
we are now
or so Jews who lived in this town when my
As I discussed this with the people I
grandparents visited, fewer than 100 sur-
found through my research, we thought
vived into 1945.
one of the main things to do was to involve
"On the other side, the book is really about younger people. It was about what the gen-
reunion, connecting people with memories
eration of survivors would pass on to the
of their own as well as with images and
generation in school now
documents of their childhood7
"The genesis of the trip was to research
Kurtz started his research in 2012. As he
the past with people who had memories, but
learned about people and met them, he col-
it evolved into a trip to bridge the distance
lected photos and documents. Eventually,
between the descendants of the Jewish com-
they all will be donated to the United
munity and the descendants of the Polish
States Holocaust Memorial Museum in
community now living in the town:'
Washington, D.C.
Kurtz, already thinking about his next
"Almost every survivor I met expressed a
writing project, does not want to let go of the
sense of disbelief that these things happened
people connections he has made.
to them; the author says.
"I can't tell whether it's what this book
"I ultimately found a lot more information
involved or the time of my life, but I certainly
than I ever expected that I could. That was a
feel a lot older," he says. "The project entails
surprise. I had not imagined how vivid the
confronting so much loss.
memories would be for these people. I had
"In the time I've been doing the research,
not expected there to be a joyous quality in
both of my parents died. My aunt, who
remembering the years before the war:'
played a tremendous role in the story, just
Ida Aisner of Farmington Hills recalls
passed away.
the experiences of her father, Andrzej
"I feel changed by having to stand up and
Lubieniecki, whose emigration away from
take my place as the person who holds these
Poland brought him to Ontario. She con-
stories, not just from my family. I take that
tacted Kurtz after connecting with a family
responsibility very seriously7
member of the late Irving Novetsky, another
For a story on the new Museum of the History of
local Nasielsk survivor referenced by Kurtz.
Polish Jews, located in Warsaw, see page 44.
Kurtz explains that the idea for the trip
arose through Chandler, whose daughter and
son-in-law traveled to Poland. Aisner and
Glenn Kurtz will speak at 1 p.m.
her sister, Sofia Chayt, also traveled with the
Sunday, Nov. 9, at the Jewish
group.
Community Center in West Bloomfield.
"We've seen trips like this on film, and
Free. For a complete Book Fair sched-
they've been depressing and mournful expe-
ule, visit www.jccdet.org .
riences," the author says.
As a grandson of the generation directly

❑

November 6 • 2014

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