Read With Jenna Book Club Pick! New York Times bestselling author Lauren Grodstein chats with Zibby about WE MUST NOT THINK OF OURSELVES, a gripping story of love and sacrifice inspired by the real-life efforts of the Oneg Shabbat group, a clandestine archive project in the Warsaw Ghetto in WWII. Lauren recounts the harrowing history of the ghetto, Emanuel Ringelblum’s leadership in documenting Jewish life under Nazi oppression, and her inspiration to write this deeply personal and historical work during the pandemic. The conversation dives into the theme of resilience, Lauren’s fascination with family dynamics in her books, and the importance of preserving memory.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Lauren. Thanks so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Bucks to discuss We Must Not Think of Ourselves a Novel. 

Lauren: Thank you so much for having me, it's a pleasure to be with you. 

Zibby: Your book was so good, oh my gosh, like the heaviness of that time just like sits on my chest as, as things sort of come up today as well.

But the way that you told the story was different than anything I had read, and it's so specific about this time in the Warsaw ghetto. Tell listeners who haven't read it yet what your book is about. 

Lauren: Okay, so in 19, well in 1939, you guys know the Germans invaded Poland and sort of split it with the Soviet Union, but, but the Germans took over Warsaw and other major cities and very quickly began to institute the Nuremberg laws in the same way that they had in Germany, which meant you couldn't go to the movies, you couldn't send your kids to public school pretty soon, you couldn't keep that much money in a bank, and then any money you couldn't keep your jobs, your life was so circumscribed.

And then finally, signs went up saying that all of the Jewish citizens of various cities had to move into historic Jewish centers. And anyone who wasn't Jewish had to leave. So if you already lived in that center, you could stay in your house, but a lot of people couldn't. And they had to give up everything and take almost nothing with them and sort of pair up or triple up in these new apartments in the historical Jewish centers of these different cities.

And in Warsaw, that, you know, area became known as the ghetto. The gates were locked, uh, 2 p. m. on a November afternoon in 1940. And a man named Emanuel Ringelblum was this historian, real life figure, who understood right away, in a way that many, many people did not, that this was not just like one difficult moment in Polish Jewish history, a thousand year history, but it could very well be like the, the last moment, um, as indeed it was.

So what he did almost immediately was assemble Maybe 60 that we know of. Writers, intellectuals, journalists, artists handed them white notebooks and said, I want you to write this all down. You're going to write down everything you see. You're going to write down everything you notice so that we control the truth.

The Nazis have taken everything from us, our homes, our livelihoods, in some cases, our families, but they will not take the truth. And so for the next, you know, two, three, two and a half ish years until the uprising. This group, they called themselves Oneg Shabbat, the Joy of the Sabbath, kept a secret archive.

They buried it underground. Three members of the archive survived. Ringelblum himself was shot with his wife and son in 1944. And they somehow figured out how to Where to look, I mean, which is kind of amazing because after the uprising, the whole ghetto was bulldozed and they dug it up and now it exists in this very small, precious museum in Warsaw that stands where the Oneg Shabbat group used to have its meetings.

So, I was there in 2019 for my nephew's bar mitzvah, he did like a family heritage thing, and I could not believe this, this archive was there, A, that I'd never heard of it, B, because like, I went to Hebrew school, you know, like kind of, right? I've been to museums, and that C, uh, no one else seemed to know about it either.

And so I was really fascinated by it, but never, you know, I've only written novels about like, I don't know, women in the Upper West Side, like, you know, struggling with like shitty husbands. Like that's always been my thing. And I'm sorry if I'm not allowed to curse on this podcast. I okay. Okay. And so I never written historical fiction.

I'd certainly never wanted to tackle the Holocaust. It didn't, you know, so all I did for nine months was to sort of study this archival project and just read about it, not for any real reason, just because I thought it was interesting. And then when the pandemic started and everybody needed a project, I decided to make this one mine.

And if I failed, I failed, doesn't matter, right? I'm just going to try to write this book because if I don't do anything during this time, I'm going to lose my mind. And so that's, that's sort of. where the book came from. That's a long answer to a short question. 

Zibby: That's okay. I was time curious. I know you wrote some of this in the note or whatever, but hearing you describe it is really interesting.

One of the themes throughout the book is that Adam doesn't know why he was called to record and be part of the Oneg Shabbat. Like, he doesn't understand why do we need to write down all of these individual things. Like, what is this for? Who is this interesting? And yet he decides as an English teacher and that he'll, he'll do it.

He'll record all the things. And it isn't until the end that he's like, Oh, I'm, I'm. recording this because there might not be a Polish Jewish population at all. Like this is the end of the line. And that's why just to record the everyday of giving the kids a bath and whatever it is, which is just so moving.

Lauren: It was the end of us, right? And that even if a few people survived here and there, there would be no more us. Yeah. And, and there had been a Polish Jewish community for a thousand years. Yeah. And if you think of our, the country that you and I are sitting in right now, like 250 ish, right? More or less. A thousand year history just wiped out.

It's, it's almost unimaginable. 

Zibby: And the way that the individual scenes are depicted in the book too, like even when you say things like, okay, 6, 000 people were rounded, rounded up today, but you're like 6, 000 people. That's like a town. That's like a synagogue. End of this. End of that. End of this. I mean, it's so many people just every day.

Lauren: Yes. Yes. I think the magnitude of it is still, I think one of the reasons that people diminish the Holocaust is first of all because they're morally bankrupt, but also because I think that they don't, those numbers are impossible. They're impossible. What is 6, 000 people? What is 6 million people? It's not, it's, uh, it's so huge as to be almost abstract.

And also what's the point? It's every one person. That's the, that's the tragedy. Every single one of us. So, you know, I think for Adam, the, the diary project just gave him a purpose amidst this tremendous loss. And with that purpose came a reason to keep going. 

Zibby: And you show us what it was like from the point of view of the kids he was teaching, a few in particular.

How he was sharing a house with another family, his relationship with the woman in the family, and how that evolves over time. The scene where they're all shaving their heads. Oh my gosh. And how he says like, it had been so long since anyone touched my hair in that way. And just the sensory of it. Like you could feel being in that room with them and what she looked like and what he looked like.

And oh my gosh, it was like, I feel like I was there the way you told it. 

Lauren: Yeah. Thanks. Have you ever gotten, like, you know when you get your hair, like, uncut, and they wash your hair, and it's like the best. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah. And how all of the stress, it's really good, and all of the stress can sort of dissolve for a second if somebody touches your scalp or temples or something.

And I was really trying to channel that in that scene, how that feels. 

Zibby: I was just telling my kids, I was like giving one of them a hug, I was like, you know, this has physiological benefits. It's not just, it feels good. You have to let me hug you. Yeah. It's like, this will bring down your pulse and this will, you know, this has, this will help you in general.

Yeah. You know, one thing that is also really interesting about the book is that when we hear about all these horrible Holocaust stories, it's always like the tragedies that happened during the Holocaust. These, these small moments that are like the most horrific things ever. But his, Adam's mourning of his wife, who died in this freak accident before things got really bad, his keeping her memory alive is another through line of the whole book, right?

And how, think about just that one life and how the loss of his wife affected him throughout and even as he's stripped of everything and gets to a point where he's like, I know I was married to her. I don't even have any pictures, but I know it, I remember it, all of that, like, they can't take that memory away.

And then you, of course, you know, multiply that times 6 million or whatever lot, however many losses, like that, how it feels to lose one person you love is like, I don't know. I mean, it's, it's everything. 

Lauren: It's everything. It's everything. Yeah. And I don't know if you do this. When you write, but like, sometimes I just write towards my darkest fears to see if I could survive it.

Mm hmm. You know, and I've done that in earlier books, and I always sort of realized, well, like, I would, I would be very hard, but I could. But this time I was like, I don't know. Like, I gave Adam a strength and a resilience that I just don't know if I have myself, or if I would just give up at some point. 

Zibby: I mean, he wouldn't have thought he could, I mean, I think it's one day after another, you never know.

I mean, I mean, these are extraordinary circumstances, not in a good way. I mean, extraordinary, you know, yeah. And by the end, oh my gosh, the way you ended the book, I just like, it's just, it's like sitting here. It's like something I can't quite swallow, like, you know, rice stuck in my chest or something. It's just, I don't mean to laugh.

It's so sad. 

Lauren: No, it's so ridiculous. 

Zibby: It's so hopeful. 

Lauren: It's like that this happened. in like my grandparent's lifetime. This happened. This happened. It's like I still having spent years of my life now. in this moment, right? Like talking about it, researching it, writing it. I still certainly sometimes can't believe this all happened.

How could this, how could the world have let this happen? 

Zibby: Yep. But the way you took it apart in particular, the news that came at certain times, like the rationalizations, like, Oh no, no. Like we have the allies will be here. Like it's fine. And then I'm sure this will be like a three month thing. And it did hearken back to COVID when we're all Oh, yeah, I'm going to pack for two weeks, you know, they thought they would be there just for a little bit.

And that's very different because we know looking back how long everything took. But at the moment, they're just like, Oh, this is just a bad spot. How am I going to get these memories, this earned back this time for the kids? You know? Yeah. Yeah. And how one day just becomes like the whole story, like the whole thing unfolded.

Yeah. Terrific. Anyway, deep thoughts. Deep thoughts of the day. You know, reading your book, you know, I, like so many people who are sort of obsessed with this time period, I think to understand it, and I think like you said to sort of prevent against it or whatever, it occurred to me that like, maybe some people don't understand it as well because they haven't read 8, 000 books, you know, I mean, this sounds, this This doesn't, this sounds like ridiculously obvious, but we all are so familiar with what happened.

And I say, we all, like most Jewish people who are, who read and reread about stories about the Holocaust, not just textbooks, but books like this and experiences and whatever. But I think for most people, if you just learn about it and you don't dig into those personal experiences, maybe you don't understand like the true.

Lauren: And also think about how it gets taught, who it gets taught to, like, you know, I mean, this is a, it's mandated. I live in New Jersey where Holocaust education is actually mandated as it is in New York and I think, you know, a few other states, but if it's not, and your history curriculum has a lot to get through and it's easy for people to never know, right?

To never learn. You don't go to Hebrew school. You don't know any Jewish people. You've heard of it vaguely in the same way you heard of World War I vaguely, but what does it really mean? Like it's almost, not quite, but almost easy to see how it becomes just another sort of tick in the world's list of sort of horrible things in history.

This archive was found in Poland. So one of the reasons I learned that I didn't know that much about it was that it was, it was discovered in Poland in 1946 and again the rest in 1950. And now, you know, Poland was communist. It was, it had like war side. Very strong ties. It wasn't a it wasn't part of the USSR, but it was sort of a satellite state, a client state of Moscow.

And according to Soviet ideology, the only people who suffered from the Nazi cruelty were other communists, not Jews. So like, even though most of the Holocaust took place behind the Iron Curtain, there was not a lot of If any sort of commemoration, memorialization, understanding of what had happened, the Holocaust was in some ways suppressed for a long time in certain places.

And so, I think, anyway, one of the reasons that, that this archive is sort of undernone is just because of where it was found. But if you think about education, and you think about how much there probably is left to learn, even though we feel like there are millions of books and, and seminars and museums and studies, Is there still things that we don't know and we don't know them in part I think because of where they happened.

The other thing that I think is, is so crucial, right, is, is not just sort of the easy way of never forget, which of course, yes, never forget, but also what are we never going to forget? I mean, I think teaching our children, not just what happened, how it happened. Exactly. How it could happen. understanding things about our fellow man that allows this to happen.

All that feels just more and more important to me now, right now. 

Zibby: Yeah. I feel like the, the history of knowing how to spot the signs when they start. Exactly. Exactly. Is crucial to know. Yeah. You have to be aware all the time of what's coming. I had heard of Oneg Shabbat to be honest, but I hadn't. Spoken to anybody who had seen any of it or whatever.

Even the, even the, the fascination with the languages. So, which I know Adam is very interested in and you know, there's a lot of talk in the book about when he's speaking, when he's speaking to the kids in English and how he wants them to learn English because it'll help them When, which character reverts back to what language, and then in the end how you, you know, you're really calling out, like, why he's fascinated by language, and is the Yiddish language going to disappear altogether?

Talk about that piece of, of the puzzle. 

Lauren: So, so it comes from a lot of places. First of all, I don't know if you speak Yiddish. Different languages. I would like to. Like, I've always been fascinated. There was an article in the Washington Post a year ago, too. Who knows? Time means nothing. But like, a little while ago, there was this article about a guy who, I think he was a carpet cleaner, and he was just also a polyglot.

Like, he just naturally, like, he could hear a conversation in Portuguese and suddenly speak Portuguese. He spoke, like, 26 languages. And that, to me, is a dream. Like, the idea that I could be, like, a one woman babblefish and just, like, like, speak anything. Because when I, when I travel, I'm so frustrated by my inability to communicate.

As you can tell, I'm a big talker. And so, like, the idea of speaking many, many languages, which, by the way, many of our grandparents did effortlessly, because they did have to live in different Right. They, they had to sort of switch depending on who they were talking to, what they spoke. So Adam has this gift that I want, which is like, he can speak several languages, but especially English, Polish, and Yiddish, which are the different languages that are spoken in the ghetto for the most, not English, but Polish and Yiddish.

And the other thing that I think is, makes it sort of interesting is that Poland, which I think we think, I think of as this very monolithic place. society, right? Catholic, white, wasn't. Before the war, Germans, Ukrainians, Jews, lots of different people living in a multi ethnic country. And so his, uh, fascination with languages sort of reflects, or his, his just knowledge of languages reflects the reality of the country in which he lived.

But the final reason that he really loves language, I, I think is because every language has its own specific ways of expressing things. And Adam's an expressive kind of person. And there are different ways to say like, I love you. And they mean slightly different things or like, I miss you. Like in French, it's to my monk.

So the you comes before the, I miss that. That's a, it's like, it just like changes your brain a little bit when you see. different ways, different languages express similar feelings. And I think for Adam, he recognized that and that helped like, like the, the, the, the broadness of the ways he could express himself gave him a lot of comfort because he could speak these different languages.

Zibby: It's amazing. How has this deep dive into this time period and even coming out and touring and the book and the success and all that, like what new have you learned about this time period or about yourself after the whole thing? 

Lauren: So much, so much. 

First of all, I think the most thing, like what have I learned about myself is that it is okay for me to just shut up and listen sometimes.

What has happened, and especially, so I have been. beyond blessed to be invited all over the country to sort of talk about this book, to meet different people. And in some places, Florida, for instance, there's a pretty, pretty dense population of either Holocaust survivors or more frequently now the children of Holocaust survivors.

And after certain events, there was one, um, outside Toronto, there's one in Fort Lauderdale, a few others where people just come up to me afterwards, I'm signing books and They just want me to hear their story. And for a long time, I felt like I was supposed to give something back. Like you tell me your story and then I offer something, but I don't know what I'm supposed to offer.

Like what, what, what do you, what can I say? Like, that is unbelievable. I can't believe your parents survived. You survived. I'm so, and then I realized, oh, I don't have to say anything at all. Like what people want is to be heard. They want to make sure someone else in the world knows their story. And I've learned about myself that I can just shut up.

Listen, and afterwards say thank you so much. I won't forget that. And people seem, that's all people seem to want. Like, uh, someone else knows and it won't be forgotten. So I, I have been very, very honored to try to hold. These stories, right? Especially as, as the people who witnessed the Holocaust firsthand are, are, are passing, passing on, you know, and the other thing, like, I was a little worried about security at this difficult time.

I was a little bit worried, certainly about Holocaust denial or about anti Semitic I don't know. I didn't know if, like, on Goodreads, if, like, I was gonna get flamed for writing a book that is proudly Jewish and about something historical and true that many people want to diminish. But I've been very, very lucky, I understand, and grateful that people have been really supportive of me and of this book.

People have been, um, and not just Jewish, Audiences by any means. I've spoken at like, you know, historically black colleges, I've spoken to a Catholic women's group. I've spoken, like I've spoken to all sorts of people. And, um, at least in my experience, which I understand is not universal. People have been really, really curious and, and great.

You know, so, so that's been a huge relief. Cause frankly, if, if people came at me, I don't know what I would do. I don't know what I would do. I would, I don't know. I'm not very combative, so it would be really hard. I admire people who can just get up and stand up and rattle off facts. And I don't know what I would do, but no, but thankfully I haven't, that hasn't happened.

Zibby: Oh, good. Well, that's, yeah. 

Wait, can you, can you go back to your writing before this book? I loved your description of bad husbands on the Upper West Side. That's hilarious. I haven't read your backlist, but obviously I now need to go back and read it. Talk about like getting started and what your other books are about and all that.

Lauren: Okay. So my first book was my thesis. It was a collection of short stories published by a teeny tiny press. That's still around that I love they did a beautiful job and but you know, it's a small press book It wasn't gonna get a huge amount of review attention But it got one glowing illustrator review and that happened to be in the New York Times book review so if you're gonna get one review that should be it and I was thrilled and felt very famous and then just decided like if if I don't know.

That just gave me, I went, I got my MFA. So I was obviously invested, but I thought about going to Los Angeles, maybe trying to write for TV or going to publishing the industry side or something. But instead, I got a job at a Jewish nonprofit. They closed early on Fridays every day for, you know, every week for Shabbat.

So before I went to work, and then from like, I don't know, three to five on Friday, I worked on this novel. It was like a very young. Kids in Brooklyn kind of novel, but fortunately it was like 2004 or something and people were really into like Kids in Brooklyn novels. But the first book that, that, that of mine that's, that sort of found an audience was about, A doctor in the upper West.

I'm sorry, a doctor in the New York suburbs. I grew up in a medical community in New Jersey. My dad is a, is, remains a nephrologist, a kidney specialist in the Bergen County, which is just outside Manhattan. And grew up, I think in this time that is much harder to emulate now, but like where you could be.

Born, you know, in a one bedroom apartment in the Bronx, or you could write and then just because of government investment in schools because of your own grit because of the legacy of your parents and wanting to do better and honor all the people who made these sacrifices become a doctor, one generation.

And so it's a story about a doctor who did that. And now his son is like farting around and dropping out of college and wants to be an artist and the father slowly loses his mind. And it's actually a suspense novel. You start the doc, it's a very intensely first person. You're in this doctor's point of view.

He has one son. He and his wife struggled with infertility. He's put everything he has into the son and the son is not honoring his father and he slowly loses his mind. And I wrote that book before I had kids, but I knew. So deeply, like it's in my bones, what I owe everyone who came before me. So I felt very connected to that dad who lots of people don't like.

So that's OK. And then I've written books about, you know, parents and kids. They keep coming back to that. Parents want one thing for their kids, parents who understand that they You know, so, so, so the book that came before We Must Not Think of Ourselves was a novel about a single mom on the Upper West Side who has ovarian cancer and who knows that, like, she has to get her son to a safe place before she goes, but she's very dark and very witty and very, she's like, she's like a woman you'd probably Like hanging out with, she's very funny and snarky and she really, really hates her kid's dad, like really hates him.

He has not been involved in raising the kid at all, but the kid wants to go to the dad. And so it's really a novel of her, like coming to terms with what the, that what the kid wants is. Matters much more than what she wants, which, uh, sounds like a bummer, but isn't because she again is sort of funny and snarky and, and, and she's cool to be with.

What's that called? And that is called Our Short History. And that came out in 17. And then, uh, I just took this like weird turn and wrote this book. And then people have asked, like, are you going to do another historical fiction? I don't, maybe, I don't know. I don't think I'm going to write about the Holocaust again.

I don't, you know, I mean, who knows, never say never, but it really is kind of wrenching to be in that time period for that long. I can see that. 

Zibby: Where is this fascination on, on families and stuff? Have you dug into that in your own therapy or whatever? 

Lauren: Let's go back. 

Zibby: Yeah, let's go back. 

Lauren: I am, I'm, I'm really lucky.

It's because I'm lucky. It's like, I'm super close with my siblings. I'm the oldest of three. My parents, you know, they're pretty good. They did a, you know, we still hang out quite a bit. We were all at the Mets game last week. Like, we just, we were, we're tight. We have, Similar interests. We have similar senses of humor.

Uh, and I also grew up, I think my parents were pretty young. People had kids younger than, so like I didn't grow up with my parents at all, but I grew up aware of them and their relationships with their parents. And I just sort of grew up watching them closely, I think more closely than they would have preferred and found them really interesting.

You know, I find their generation, they're boomers. I find the boomers interesting. I find. Their expectations for the world. Interesting. Their expectations for us. I'm a writer. So I'm sort of the, I'm the, you know, the, my sister's a lawyer. My brother's a doctor, right? Like I'm the one who's like a little like, and they really instilled in us, I think a sense that we, that it was our responsibility to, to, to do, to go really far with the gifts we've been given.

And I find that kind of dynamic interesting to like. Who do we want to succeed for? Like, obviously ourselves, but I think also we want to succeed so that we can meet up, meet the standards we were kind of raised with. Which sounds like maybe a little bad, but isn't. It's fine. You know? Fine. It's like, fine.

But what's also weird is like, I don't, that's not how I treat my kids at all. Cause I don't have to, do you know what I mean? Like my, like, I, I feel like I did it. I'm fine. I wrote some books. I've gotten out in the world. So my kids don't have as much, I'm not trying to like, I don't know. I don't like they can do whatever.

I don't care. You know what I mean? Just like survive. That's fine. 

Zibby: Great. Perfect. Yeah. 

Lauren: Just, just like, honestly, at this point, just like get out of my house, go get a job. That's like,.. 

Zibby: How old are your kids? 

Lauren: They're there. There's a big age gap. Um, my son is 16. My daughter's nine. 

Zibby: Okay, 

I have that too. I have 17.

Lauren: Oh, do you really? 

Zibby: I have 17, 11, and 9, so. 

Lauren: Yeah, yeah. There's a, it's a, it's fun, right? Like, I think. 

Zibby: Yeah. Yeah. No, I like it. I think it's good. 

Lauren: Is a 17 year old, uh, junior or senior? 

Zibby: They're juniors, but they're twins. I have two, two 16 year olds. Yeah. 

Lauren: Gosh. Yeah, yeah. My son's a junior too. 

Zibby: Yeah. Fun year, huh? Big stuff.

Big stuff. Fun year. Yeah. Well, I hate to even, like, leave this conversation laughing because 

Lauren: No, we should. Oh, but no, Zibby, I think we should. I think we should. I think we should. No, and this is why, like, I'm sorry to, like, interrupt, but like, I think we should. Because, okay, so I have this slideshow that I often do in presentations where the last is a photograph of my nephew's bar mitzvah in Krakow, like the party itself.

There's some wine, there's some food, and there were people, and there was laughter, and there were toasts, and it was joy. There was Jewish joy in a country that had had so much Jewish joy for a millennium. And so I think ending with Jewish joy actually is really, really important. And I, I, that's how I live my life.

Right. We celebrated my son's bar mitzvah with dancing and joy. And so I think laughing is good. Like I'm really into it. 

Zibby: Okay. 

Lauren: Also, I like to laugh generally. 

Zibby: Great. Okay. And I'm glad we ended it laughing. And that is a good point. And that is what we all would want. That's what everybody would have wanted to have continued anyway, I think.

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. 

Zibby: Great to meet you. Hope to meet you in person sometime. Congratulations on paperback and everything. And delighted to have had the chance to chat with you. 

Lauren: Thank you so much, Zibby. Have a great rest of your day. 

Zibby: Thank you, you too. Okay, bye bye.