Sykesville, Maryland — January 15, 2011 — Author Fred Glueckstein, a resident of Maryland, announced today that his new book Novy Bohumin: a Young Woman's Survival of the Holocaust  is available by the publisher iUniverse. The story as told by his mother, Mimi Rubin Glueckstein, describes her life from 1938 to 1945.

Mimi's memoir tells the story of her growing up in Novy Bohumin, Czechoslovakia; a tranquil town where some three hundred Jewish families lived in a population of ten thousand. Life as Mimi knew it changed forever when on September 1, 1939 the German army occupied the city. From that day forward, eighteen-year old Mimi would face some of the harshest moments of her life.

Mimi's story tells the story of her idyllic life in Novy Bohumin before the occupation, to being transported by the Germans with her mother, grandmother, and sister to two Jewish ghettos in Poland and then to being imprisoned in three German concentration camps, and finally, to liberation. It tells of the heartbreaking loss of her parents and grandmother and of the tempered joys of reuniting with her sister, meeting Josef Gluckstein in the Blechhammer Concentration Camp, marrying him after the war, and emigrating together and their six-month old son to the United States from Germany in 1948.


An excerpt from Novy Bohumin: a Young Woman's Survival of the Holocaust

With only hours before the Germans were due to arrive, Father and other Jewish men decided that it was prudent to leave Novy Bohumin immediately. But the families were to stay behind. "It is a hard decision," Father explained, "but Jewish women and children will be of no use to the Germans. You will be safe. The others and I will travel East into Poland away from the Germans, find work, and send for you. Is there any other choice?" he asked. On the morning of September 1, 1939, Father packed a small valise with clothes, rings, watches, and other jewelry from the shop. Only the clocks on the wall which had been for sale, remained. The familiar tick-tock-tick-tock rhythm of the clocks was the last sounds Father heard as he closed the shop for what would be the last time. I was sad to see him leave. A feeling of ill-boding gripped me. And I was right.

I never saw Father again.


This compelling firsthand account of Novy Bohumin: a Young Woman's Survival of the Holocaust weaves the personal, yet horrifying, details of Mimi's experience with historical facts about this era in history. Her story helps keep alive the memory of the millions of innocent men, women, and children who died in the German concentration camps during the 1930s and 1940s.



Book Ordering
Hard and soft cover copies are available, or may be obtained or ordered, at local bookstores and directly on amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. A copy of the book is also available on Kindle and Nook. Books may also be order from the publisher, iUniverse at 1-800-Authors or on-site at iuniverse.com.

Booksellers. The publisher, iUniverse, provides returnability on hardcover and soft copies ordered through distributors.


About the Author
Fred Glueckstein attended Queens College of the City University of New York and New York University. He has written extensively about horses and been published in The Chronicle of the Horse, Horses in Art, Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred, Equestrian, ARMY magazine, and the Preakness Souvenir Magazine. Fred is also columnist for PhelpsSports.com, an all-equestrian sports service. He is also a contributor to Finest Hour, the official publication of the Churchill Centre and International Societies, The Duke Ellington Society in New York, and World Coin News. Fred is the author of three books: Of Men, Women and Horses, The '27 Yankees and Mickey Mantle: Rookie in Pinstripes. Fred and his wife Eileen have two children, Brian and Debra