CRP's Blog

Read below to learn from author Bev Saltzman Lewyn about the challenges and insights she gained while helping her father-in-law, Bert Lewyn, write On the Run in Nazi Berlin, a memoir about his experiences as a runaway Jew in the heart of the Nazi empire.

What first inspired you to help your father-in-law write this memoir?

When my husband, Marc, and I were engaged, we drove to the beach and listened to the cassette tapes that my future father-in-law, Bert, had recorded about his Holocaust experiences. After hearing those tapes, I knew he had a very unusual experience among Holocaust survivors.

He was never in a concentration camp.

He wasn’t hidden in one place like Anne Frank.

He was in Berlin the entire war.

The events that saved him—like him fashioning a key from a piece of lead pipe so he could escape a Gestapo prison—were just jaw-dropping.

Bert wanted to write a book about his experiences. He bought a computer and “how to write a book” books, but he couldn’t seem to get started. After Marc and I married and I was pregnant with our first child, I proposed to Bert that we take my maternity leave from CNN to write his book. I thought the baby would be sleeping or cooing blissfully most of the time, so we would have lots of time to get it done. Of course, I knew nothing about babies or about the complexities of excavating 50-year-old memories. So instead of taking a few months, it took us over six years to write the book!

What was your most shocking discovery in researching Bert’s life?

We had many discoveries, but the blockbuster of them all was faint-worthy. We learned Bert had blocked the memory that he had been married and had a child.

At first, he didn’t remember the woman in question at all.

One day I joked with him that his story was like an action film straight out of Hollywood, but it was a pity it lacked the requisite Hollywood love interest. We had a good laugh, but the joke prompted Bert to remember meeting a pretty red-haired Jewish nurse named Ilse.

He remembered losing his virginity to her and then posing as husband and wife with her for about six weeks when they hid in a drunkard’s apartment. Then he remembered nothing about her until after the war when they met in a displaced person’s camp to get a Jewish religious divorce “just in case anyone thought they were really married.”

After finding contradictions to this memory in the letters and documents we researched, we did an international search for Ilse to see if she could answer our questions. When Ilse finally called, she told Bert they had not been posing as husband and wife. Instead, they had been legally married in a German court of law before they ever went underground. She showed him the documents to prove it. They also had a baby who died in the concentration camp she was held in before Bert could meet him. She showed him a photo of his gravestone, but Bert had no memory of having had a son.

Ilse told him she had been with him for many of his U-boat experiences. Many of the memories Bert had, Ilse had, and she gave us more detail. He had just forgotten her presence.

Part of my research was speaking to a specialist to understand how trauma survivors can push painful memories so far away that they no longer recall them at all. It is like they have a house full of terrible memories. To cope and move forward, instead of burning down the whole house, they throw away the key. Ilse, his first wife, was his key.

What was the greatest challenge you faced while uncovering your father-in-law’s story?  

Drudging up memories after 50 years is much more complicated than I would have guessed.  At first, Bert remembered primarily three main stories. As I interviewed him to try to help him remember more, he would recall new people and experiences.

These stories were often hanging on their own without context. We had to put them on a timeline so we would have an accurate sense of what Bert did first and what events came next. I interviewed him more, now asking questions so we could put his memories on a timeline.

He spent three years on the run, and we wanted to describe those years as accurately as possible.   Making this timeline took months. Often my questions would bring up brand new memories which we would then have to slot. Sometimes remembering one new person or situation would open up a whole new section of memories that he hadn’t previously recalled.

All this was good; we wanted him to remember as many precise details as possible. But it did make for significant delays and rewrites. Delays are the price you pay when you are devoted to having a nonfiction book be as accurate as possible.

What do you hope readers will take away from reading On the Run?

I hope readers find inspiration in the incredible cleverness, daring and resilience of my father-in-law. His story reads like a Hollywood thriller.

My father-in-law proved that human beings can rise to incredible heights in terms of stamina and determination in the face of horror.

I also hope the book provokes thought about how terrible experiences can impact a trauma survivor. In my opinion, Bert was one of the luckiest Holocaust survivors out there. He was somehow able to separate himself from the terrible emotions of those war experiences. That emotional distance protected him and undoubtedly enabled him to live a happy and very successful life.

What five people—living, dead, fictional or nonfictional—would you have over for your dream dinner and why?   

I love, above all, to be inspired. And so I would like to cook for, have fun with, and learn from the following heroes of mine at the dinner party of my dreams:

Amy Krouse Rosenthal: Her prolific writing for adults and children and her social experiments showed such an appreciation and love for people. How I wish I could have met her before she died. I only discovered her through her 2017 NYT Modern Love column “You May Want to Marry My Husband,” and she died days later. I had just finished chemo for breast cancer when that piece was published. While I was recovering, I bought and read everything she had written.   I felt such a deep kinship with her, especially her adult writings, social experiments and family life. The world lost such a light when she died. I would love to have a chance to talk with her.

Jesse Itzler and Sara Blakely: Married entrepreneurs (she invented Spanx) who have tried to help others both personally and professionally in an honest, generous and significant way. Jesse has done this through his books and his Build Your Life Resume course, which I loved. On her Instagram page, Sara shares the good, bad and the ugly of mothering young children. Though I am beyond the parenting stage she is in, I love that someone with her resources can reassure others that while there is plenty of sunshine and hilarity, there are also rough times when you are a parent. She helps others see their struggles as normal. And they are! Sara also shares lessons she has learned as an entrepreneur, and she tries to motivate others. I love her focus on helping other women. I would be honored to cook Jesse and Sara something healthy and delicious to thank them for all they do for others.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s insight and wisdom about being a woman, gained through much personal struggle and pain, is something I have always found so inspiring. I have given her book Gift from the Sea to many friends. Some sections of it should probably be mandatory reading for newlyweds and moms. I try to reread it every few years. I would love to meet her and to tell her how much her insight has meant to my friends and me.  And to hear more.

Lin-Manuel Miranda: He is a genius and creative disrupter who not only has great intellectual curiosity, but he also translates what he learns most brilliantly. Hamilton made America see itself differently. It made us view history in such a personal, exciting way. It changed the way many people thought theatre had to be. Lin-Manuel Miranda burst open possibilities for teaching, learning and appreciating. I would love to talk to him to get a better sense of how he does what he does. I can’t wait to see what he will create next!