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SUHL / ON WRITING HOLOCAUST FICTION
51
editor and teacher, seems to have been a necessary preparation
for the writing of this novel. Even so I approached the task with
a great deal of self-doubt and trepidation. Was I ready? Would
I succeed?
A REALISTIC AND BELIEVABLE STORY
The first two reassuring answers to these questions came soon
after publication and they came in the form of a review and a
letter. The review characterized the story as being “realistic and
believable.” Of all the other pleasing adjectives the review con
tained, for me those two were the key words.
The letter was a fan letter from a young reader out in San
Marino, California, which reads as follows:
Dear Mr. Suhl:
I just read your book,
Uncle Misha’s Partisans,
and I en
joyed it thoroughly. I could really relate with the main char
acter, Motele. I am Jewish. Motele’s parents were killed by
the Nazis and so were my grandparents! I thought it was ex
citing when Motele first went out on his mission and was hired
in the German Headquarters. Why did you write the novel?
Do you have a sequel?
Sincerely yours,
Steve Barlam
In my reply I told Steve that I wrote the book for him and
other boys and girls his age so that they could learn something
about the Holocaust and Jewish resistance. In their quest for
a meaningful identity with their people many young Jews ask
searching questions related to the Holocaust: Why were the Jews
selected for the Final Solution? How did they react to Hitler’s
genocidal program? Is it true, as some say, that they went pas
sively to their death, that they did not resist? It is terribly im
portant to know that they are not members of a people of cow
ards; that in the face of their greatest catastrophe the Jewish
people, with minor exceptions, comported themselves with great
dignity and responsibility; that they did resist, and considering
the conditions under which they fought back their resistance
assumes a dimension of unparalleled heroism.
What a great inspiration it would be for them to know how
the ghetto historian, Emmanuel Ringelblum, described the re