Micael Bindefelds foundation annually awards a scholarship in order to support the people who in any way disseminates knowledge about the Holocaust to a broad american audience. Since the foundation’s founding in 2014, the scholarship have been distributed on the Holocaust remembrance day on 27 January.
2019 year scholarship goes to journalist and author Anders Rydell, and to Natalie Verständig, who wrote a novel based on her grandfather’s personal experiences of the Holocaust. The novel is published by Natur & Kultur in the beginning of 2020.
– Stipendiepengarna will go to to convey the book to the nation’s schools, ” says romandebutanten Natalie Verständig, who normally works as an investigator at the Swedish agency in Stockholm.
was born in a jewish family in Poland in 1920 and was 19 years old when the war broke out. He survived nine different labour and concentration camps before 1945 was rescued from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and later came to Sweden as a refugee. At that point, he did not know what had happened with the rest of his family. In addition, he had contracted tuberculosis and weighed 39 kilos. Samuel was sent to a hospital on the island of Gotland, which specializes in lung diseases, and lay there for nine months. After recovery, he moved to Stockholm where he met natalie’s grandmother, although she Förintelseöverlevande from Poland.
During the middle of the 80’s, Samuel writing down their experiences from the Holocaust. The notes were written down in several different kollegieblock.
– Despite the fact that it had been more than 30 years, he described the events very detailed. He wrote about childhood and the time before the war, but above all throughout the war: his thoughts, how he made his way between different places, people he met. Anything is possible, ” says Natalie Verständig.
later began Natalie Verständigs mother write clean notes in the family computer.
” Grandfather’s handwriting was quite difficult to read because he had lost three of his fingers in a workplace injury in Sweden. In addition, his English is not so good, and he mixed also in yiddish and Hebrew phrases in the texts.
When the transcription was completed, amounted to the material to almost 100 computer, written pages.
then began the Natalie Verständig hold a lecture together with a Zikaron, a compound which provides free lectures on the Holocaust for secondary and high schools.
” I heard about the organization and thought that I had my material to start from. It felt like a good thing to pass on. I had long thought that I wanted to do something of his history, and now the time felt ready.
the way we handle the memory of the Holocaust will change with time, it is inevitable.
Shortly thereafter, she applied for a writing class, as preparation to begin writing a book about His experiences.
” I have always known that I wanted to write a book based on my notes, but I had not decided what kind of book it would be. It was in connection with the skrivarkursen as I tested some different grips, and finally came to the conclusion that it would be a fiction novel, she says, and continues:
– There are very many historians who have written very good books about the Holocaust. I did not know that I could contribute much there. Instead, I wanted to use my design, to be able to fantasize about what he thought and felt in different situations, and tell about his experiences through other characters.
the Result was a novel set in two time periods. In the first part, follow the reader is the male protagonist from childhood in Poland, through the Holocaust and up until the liberation. The second timeline takes place in 1956, eleven years after the main character come to Sweden, and is about the reunion with his brother.
” What’s unfolding in Poland is based on my history and where I have tried to keep myself as much as possible to his notes. In the second part, I have found on the much more yourself, because I have not had any material from the grandpa to start from. But in order to be able to write the part I have done much research and interviews.
” It has gone up and down. The first part was almost easier to write because I kept myself so close to the reality. It was only to portray it. The later story was more difficult because I wrote more freely, at the same time as the time period is closer to my own life. Then my mother had time to be born and a small child.
Natalie Verständig applied for Micael Bindefelds scholarship, she was called into a meeting with the foundation. A few months later they heard of a good news.
” I was really pleased, but I knew enough not quite what it would mean. I had applied for the scholarship with an excerpt from the book and we discussed how we would take it further. Finally, I sent the script to the Nature & Culture, which chose to give it out. It feels natural to stipendiepengarna will go to distribute the book to schools across the country.
” It’s a really interesting question. How we handle the memory of the Holocaust will change with time, it is inevitable. Therefore, I believe that the third generation, we who are the grandchildren of survivors, have an important role to continue to share their stories on.