Two Rings

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Overview

Judged only as a World War Two survivor’s chronicle, Millie Werber’s story would be remarkable enough. Born in central Poland in the town of Radom, she found herself trapped in the ghetto at the age of fourteen, a slave laborer in an armaments factory in the summer of 1942, transported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944, before being marched to a second armaments factory. She faced death many times; indeed she was certain that she would not survive. But she did.

Many years ...

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Overview

Judged only as a World War Two survivor’s chronicle, Millie Werber’s story would be remarkable enough. Born in central Poland in the town of Radom, she found herself trapped in the ghetto at the age of fourteen, a slave laborer in an armaments factory in the summer of 1942, transported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944, before being marched to a second armaments factory. She faced death many times; indeed she was certain that she would not survive. But she did.

Many years later, when she began to share her past with Eve Keller, the two women rediscovered the world of the teenage girl Millie had been during the war. Most important, Millie revealed her most precious private memory: of a man to whom she was married for a few brief months. He was—if not the love of her life—her first great unconditional passion. He died, leaving Millie with a single photograph taken on their wedding day, and two rings of gold that affirm the presence of a great passion in the bleakest imaginable time.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
From Fordham University professor Keller's interviews with Werber comes the expertly-told tragic story of a short-lived and star-crossed marriage during the Holocaust. Werber's tale begins in Radom, Poland where she shared a two-room apartment with her mother, father, and brother. In 1941, Radom was established as a ghetto and the family was required to move into a one-room apartment with Werber's aunt, uncle, and cousins. The next year, she was forced to live and work at an ammunitions factory at the age of 15. It was here that Werber met Heniek Greenspan, a Jewish man working as a police officer at the factory. In the span of a few months, they fell in love and surreptitiously married. She cannot recall exactly how long they were married before he was betrayed by a fellow officer and, presumably, sent to a death camp. He knew he was to be sent away and he brought his wedding band back to her, hoping she might sell it and increase her chances of survival. Throughout the war-including a horrific tenure in Auschwitz-Werber managed to hold on to both wedding rings and her wedding photo. Werber survived, married again, made it to the U.S., and had children, but the two rings serve as constant reminders of Heniek and their brief and hopeful love. B&W photos.
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Sound Commentary
“Yelena Shmulenson reads with a slight Polish accent and a young but strong voice, just as one might expect of Millie. She is able to express both the highs and the lows of Millie’s sweet, strong story very well.”
—Sound Commentary
Kirkus Reviews
A dramatic Holocaust memoir about young love and survival. Though told in Werber's voice, the book was written by Keller (Director of Graduate Studies/Fordham Univ.; Generating Bodies and Gendered Selves: The Rhetoric of Reproduction in Early Modern England, 2006). Werber's son urged Keller to interview his mother and write about her experiences of World War II. After 60 years of reticence, the Long Island–based Werber revealed the entirety of her hardships, including the loss of a first husband whose existence she had theretofore kept secret from her children. Born in Radom, Poland, at age 14 Werber was forced to live in a small Jewish ghetto. A year later she was laboring in a factory, in conditions so brutal that mistakes cost workers their lives. "We were called the armaments workers," Werber explains, "but really, we were slaves, half starving, beyond exhausted." Within a matter of months, Werber's brother was killed and her mother, grandparents and most of her aunts and uncles had been taken away. At 15, Werber fell in love with a Jewish police officer, Heniek, more than 10 years her senior, who got her a new job in a kitchen. The two married quickly in the hopes of escaping as part of a new German exchange with Argentina. Away from the ghetto when the first "exchange" happened, Werber learned that all of the German hopefuls had been shot. After witnessing many deaths, Werber survived many close calls, as well as time at Auschwitz. Liberated in 1945, Werber moved to Germany, where she met her second husband, Jack, to whom she was married until his death in 2006. Werber's story is wholly engrossing, written with exceptional immediacy and attention to detail. A deeply affecting addition to Holocaust literature.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781617071218
  • Publisher: HighBridge Company
  • Publication date: 3/28/2012
  • Format: Other
  • Product dimensions: 5.40 (w) x 7.20 (h) x 0.90 (d)

Meet the Author

Millie Werber is today the matriarch of a close and loving family. After moving to the United States in 1946, she and her husband Jack raised their two sons in Queens, NY., where together they built a real estate business. They lived happily together until Jack’s death in 2006. Millie now lives on Long Island surrounded by her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Eve Keller is a professor and director of graduate studies at Fordham University. She is the author of Generating Bodies and Gendered Selves: The Rhetoric of Reproduction in Early Modern England, and is a past president of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts.

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